Chao Cataclysm Starring Silver the Hedgehog
by Turrican23X
Summary: Year 22XX AD. Sequel to Metal Mastermind and Predestination of Pretorious. This time Silver and Blaze face Eggman Nega, a familiar timetravelling raccoon, and an insidious plan to make evolved chao the dominant lifeform on Earth. Costarring Shadow.
1. The Queen Commands

**Chapter 1: The Queen Commands**

Two centuries after Miles "Tails" Prower founded Prower Enterprises, the mega-corporation still reigned unchallenged throughout the world. The CEO Lady Veronica Prower was a direct descendant of the eponymous founder of the company. The trail of paperwork flowing through Prower Global Enterprises clearly placed Veronica as the executor of all its important affairs, but public appearances of either Veronica herself or her two children were rare to the point of some media soures questioning whether the woman really existed at all. With power lying in the Prower name, it is certain that if the family line should end, it would be in the company's best interests to continue to broadcast the claim that a Prower remained at the top of the command chain, true, but Lady Veronica was alive and in good health. According to her, she was simply "too busy for that kind of nonsense." 

The head office of PGE was located in downtown Central City, not far from the Memorial Chao Garden, which was supposedly visisted regularly by members of the Prower family, though the media spies would claim otherwise as they constantly failed to get footage to verify the claim. Rumour had it that one reporter managed to get his hands on a bunch of child-like drawings left by the statue of Sonic the Hedgehog, and subsequently was fired, sued, and left an insane homeless wretch. The Prowers made no effort to prevent rumours of that nature, and for all anyone knew, it was true. 

Apart from the senior board of advisors and her own staff, the only people who ever met Lady Veronica Prower regularly were the three heads of the science department of PGE: The rabbit Ramon Ichorson, the echidna Lillian (the Echidna), and the human Ernst von Casselton. Each of them geniuses in their respective areas, and likely the only three people alive who could question and criticize Lady Veronica's decisions without endangering their employement, economy, reputation and lives - in that order. 

Such a thing was happening right now. The windowless office in the sub-basements of the gargantuan PGE head office building was filling with a tense silence as Veronica considered her brightest brains' objections. 

"Why not?" she asked. 

Veronica Prower dressed for function rather than form, but with a figure like hers, even in these later years, and a pair of overpaid fashion coordinators, that beige suit would draw awe and attention in any crowd. She was easily twice the height of her famous ancestor, and although she retained the twin tails of family fame, she had most likely never attempted to leave the ground by anything other than conventional means. At this point, those untrained tails wouldn't be able to carry her either way, so it was just as well. Her eight-year old son, on the other hand, was flying all over the place, and his five-year old sister was already trying. 

"Why...why not?" Ramon Ichorson repeated, looking towards his colleagues for inspiration as to how best word himself. 

Ramon was over seventy, yet still as short and stout as an animaloid child. Though possessing the highest IQ of the three, he wasn't very good at communicating his thoughts to others. 

"The ethical problems are of course a great concern," said Lillian the Echidna, coming to the rescue. "But even putting that aside, we must consider the problem of obtaining a sufficient amount of speciments with high enough quality to be usable in the experiments. It's just not viable at this time." 

Echidnas had a reputation of being gullible hard-headed creatures. Lillian was undoubtedly the most intelligent echidna ever born. If her family had not abandoned Angel Island two generations ago, she might never have had the chance to tap her incredible potential. Although far removed from the original echidna clones created by Miles Prower, Lillian's fur was as white as her lab coat, and her body near identical to the original female echidna clones. It was as if the cunning of Rouge the Bat, the mother of the echidna girl who'd offered the DNA that served as a base for all of the clones created, had been concentrated across the generations to produce a girl with intellect astounding by more than just echidna standards. 

"However," said Ernst von Casselton. "IF a sufficient number of speciments COULD be obtained, and the nature of the research kept secret enough until it produces a positive result, then yeeees, it might be done." 

Ernst was the renegade of the three. His willingness to attempt risky experiments and get beneficial results more often than not made him a very valuable member of Lady Veronica's top three. He was also the one least likely to raise any ethical objections whatsoever. One would expect the balding old man to have a potent German accent, but as it happened his English was excellent. He missed the mad scientist stereotype by a large distance. 

Veronica nodded. "Speciments will not be a problem," she said, "nor will keeping the media at bay. What of Subject Zero?" 

"It is in fine condition," Ernst answered. "We have had to keep it subdued for long periods at a time, as it does not respond well to containment conditions. One more day should suffice to gather enough data to work with. You may send it back, then." 

"Good," said Veronica, nodding. "Its caretakers have been asking about it. I've told them the treatment at the hospital went well, but that it is being kept for observation just to be on the safe side. Another week, and I'd probably have to do something about them if they kept it up." 

"It was a pleasure to work with Subject Zero," said Ramon. "A chao reborn so many times without the ageless benefit of a Chaos chao evolution is...ah...is unprecedented. W-what was the name of it, again?" 

"Cheese," said Lady Veronica Prower. 

- 

Dr. Eggman Nega has escaped from prison! 

It was all over the news within the hour. The evil criminal mastermind had been captured by the combined efforts of the heros Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat, plus a number of GUE agents. Just a week ago they'd raided Nega's pyramid base in the desert East of Central City and apprehended the villainous scientist. It was still unclear how exactly Nega had managed to destroy the outer walls of his cell and summon his Negamobile to extract him before the guards could respond. 

The news reached Silver and Blaze while they were having dinner at their favourite restaurant in the city. 

Silver caught the chunks of hot toppings dripping off his pizza slice with his psycho-kinesis before they splattered on his lap. Stains in the fur were far more of a hassle to an animaloid than stained clothes were to a human - so this was by no means unnecessary use of superpowers. 

"Nice catch," said Blaze, still waiting for her food to arrive. Her particular taste in food required a little bit more preparation time. Pizza toppings that would burn any ordinary throat to cinders were inexplicably abscent from the menu. 

"Thanks." 

"Did you hear?" came an obnoxiously loud voice from the next table. "Eggman Nega's escaped from jail! No, really. I just read it on my wrist-all. Look!" 

Blaze sprang to attention, while Silver didn't budge. She moved to start running, then noticed her partner was still sitting put. 

"What are you waiting for?" she asked. "Didn't you hear what that obnoxiously loud guy said?" 

"HEY! Oh, er...sorry." The guy was as much a regular as Silver and Blaze were, and had enough past experience to immediatelly back down when he recognised the cat. 

Silver looked unusually thoughtful. "Blaze, don't you think that sometimes...some things are more important than rushing off to save the world all the time?" 

Blaze gave him an odd look. "It's just pizza," she said. "I'll grab a hot dog on the way, now come on!" 

"Oh...alright," said Silver, standing up to follow her. 

This sort of thing happened often enough that the waiter cleaned their plates off the table without pointing out that they hadn't paid for their food. They both always paid up in full, including tips, eventually. 

The reason for Silver's change of attitude was a lengthy adventure across history that from Blaze's point of view only lasted about ten minutes. By the end of it, Silver had not only gained knowledge of many arcane secrets of the past, but also many disturbing details concerning his own future. So far he hadn't told Blaze about any of, for fear that doing so might upset the future somehow. 

Silver would never forget about Pia. He'd be happy to forget all about that dastard Pretorious, though. 

- 

In a dimly-lit laboratory far underground, Cheese the Chao slept in drug-induced silence. The children and descendants of Cream the Rabbit had cared for the chao well across the generations - well enough that every single time that particular chao reached the end of its life cycle, it was reborn with full personality and all traits intact. 

Panning away from the sight of the steel cage containing the 200 year-old chao, one would witness dozens of massive glass tubes containing flourescent blue liquid of an alien nature. 

Project Succession was now well under way. Lady Veronic Prower would see to it that it reached its end without obstruction, no matter the cost. 

-

_End of Chapter One._


	2. The Buried Truth

**Chapter 2: The Buried Truth**

The rabbit Ramon, the echidna Lillian and the human Ernst gathered in an abandoned laboratory space one hour after their meeting with Lady Veronica. Ramon had designed most of the security systems for the fortress-like building that was the head office of Prower Global Enterprises, and had found this blind spot ideal for gathering without the risk of having all everything they said recorded and eventually used against them. 

The only lab equipment left in this deserted area was worthlessly obsolete. At the moment it seemed to double as a storage area for junk not even worth taking upstairs to pack off to the recycling plant. The three sat down at the wobbly table left in the middle of the laboratory. Lillian and Ernst had been able to smuggle in a few worn-out old chairs, while Ramon sat on a stack of old boxes. Seeing one the midget rabbit's specialy adjusted chairs in here would draw too much attention. 

Lillian started the impromptu meeting with a question. 

"How long can we stall before she notices?" she said. 

"A week perhaps?" Ernst suggested. "She is becoming more obsessive by each day, it seems. Project Succession is clearly more important to her than she is willing to admit." 

"I don't like the notion of killing chao for no reason," said Ramon. "We already know for a fact that the basic speciments are insufficient for the second stage of experimentation. Dissolving them into more chao-gel gains us nothing." 

"It gains us valuable time," Lillian responded. "I don't like this any more than you do, Ramon, but we can't let Veronica know that we've isolated the the correct strain of of chao already. She'll find the right speciments soon once she knows. There's no place on Earth those chao would be safe from her." 

"I...I must apologise for questioning you for so long, Lillian," said Ernst after a pause. "I did not believe Veronica would proceed with such a foolish endevour. I should have trusted you before. Succession is no mere quest for immortality. Ironic that an imortality potion would actually be possible based on our research so far - but what Veronica has in mind...it's..." 

Ernst was not the kind of man who let his conscience intefere with his work. The fact that Lillian and Ramon had actually succeeded in making him understand the danger at hand said a very great deal about the consequences of Project Succession being completed. 

"It's all right," said Lillian, smiling amiably to her colleague. "We need to expose Veronica's scheme to the public. Once GUE knows what she's up to, they'll put a stop to it, I'm sure." 

"What makes you so certain that Veronica won't just bribe the GUE Commander into leaving her operations in peace?" Ernst asked. 

"Conquest the Bat is famous for being uncorruptible. As long as she's in charge, and the truth gets to her, Veronica won't be able to buy her way out. Trust me." 

Ramon looked more nervous than normal when faced with having to make actual conversation with real people instead of lab underlings or computers. "It will be very risky," he said. "We may be the best in our field, but I fear that to...her...we are not irreplacable. The ground-breaking research is already documented. Someone else would be able to perform the experiments without us at this point. It...would, yes, of course be significantly more difficult, but it would by no means be impossible." 

"He's right," said Ernst thoughtfully. 

"It's a risk we'll have to take," Lillian declared adamantly. "I did not become a researcher to help a madwoman cheat evolution and set in motion a cataclysmic series of events that would result in animaloids and humans being replaced as the dominant life-forms on Earth." 

"I-I...agree," said Ramon eventually. 

"I agree as well," said Ernst. 

"Besides," Lillian continued, "right now we three are the only people in the world who know which specific strain of chao Veronica needs for Succession to work. We've covered our data tracks well over the last week, so if the worst should happen, it'll take a long time for our potential replacements to rediscover what we've found." 

"Y-you're sure she can't hear us now?" Ramon asked, looking around with an air of paranoia. 

"Oh for goodness sake, Ramon," said Ernst, "we've searched through this area twice and sprayed every inch of it with nanocide. Five cans worth of micro-bug repellant should suffice for even the most advanced surveilance equipment." 

"Yes...y-you're right oh-of course..." 

- 

A day passed. Silver and Blaze had little success in tracking down Eggman Nega. It was as if the bloated scientist had vanished without a trace. It wasn't the first time, sadly. His technological counter-measures had many times been proven more than a match for GUE's surveilance satellites. 

- 

6:30 AM. 

Shadow the Hedgehog awoke in a good mood. Anyone who knew the black hedgehog well would be shocked to hear him whistling as he headed towards the bathroom. Five minutes later he reentered the bedroom fully dressed, which was to say that his gloves and jet-sneakers were equipped. 

This was not Shadow's room. Shadow's was located on the largest man-made orbital object in existence, and was far less colourful than this. 

"Hey!" Shadow called to the other occupant of the oversized bed he'd slept in. 

Conquest the bat groaned irritably and pulled the rest of the covers over herself. "It's too early," she muttered. 

"C'mon, get up. You're adressing the senior GUE staff in half an hour," said Shadow. "I'm not covering for you again. The Commander of the global military force can meet her own appointments on her own." 

Shadow dodged the thrown pillow by leaning slightly to the left. 

"It's not fair. You Ultimate Life-Forms can just go from sleep to wide awake like a light switch. Well the rest of us need a good five minutes." 

Shadow pulled the curtains aside. The effect would've been better if the sun shone in and lit up the room, but it was an overcast day, and the sun hadn't quite cleared the distant pumpkin-shaped mountains yet. When Shadow turned back, he was met with snoring. Clearly this was one of those days that demanded drastic measures. The black hedgehog went back into the bathroom and turned on the shower, then returned to the bedroom. 

"Chaos Control!" Shadow the Hedgehog shouted. 

A moment later there was a squeal from the bathroom. "Shaaaaadow!! You'd better start running, because when I catch you there'll be hell to pay!" 

Shadow laughed. For once, the oft-claimed resemblance to Sonic the Hedgehog was actually visible. 

Wait, did he turn on the hot water or the cold? Oh dear, there really WAS going to be hell to pay after this. Nevertheless, this was the happiest Shadow had been two hundred years. 

- 

Lady Veronica Prower pressed rewind, then listened to the recording from the beginning again. 

_"How long can we stall before she notices?_

You just couldn't trust anyone these days. If one of the three scientists hadn't come forward and revealed their little conspiracy in exchange for absolution, she might not have known about it until it was too late. 

Veronica was going to have to deal with the other two painfully when the time came. For now, let them continue their little petty scheme while she concentrated her efforts on tracking down the undiscovered chao garden somewhere in the region north of China where the necessary strain still existed. 

She was going to need new allies for this endevour... 

- 

_End of Chapter Two_


	3. The Chameleon Thief

**Chapter 3: The Chameleon Thief**

Jedo the Chameleon. Master thief. One might think that in a time period where surveilance systems had advanced to nanotechnological standards, it would be impossible for a thief to operate undetected. One would be wrong. The general public had never cared much for total surveilance, and the greater industries remained every bit as much at risk, because the technology used by the criminals improved at the same rate as the countermeasures. Jedo didn't use much high-tech gear, though. He considered himself an artist in the field of theft, and prided himself on never using more than his natural abilities unless absolutely necessary to complete a job. 

Jedo's present task was prestigeous enough that he opted for the fancy stuff even though he was confident that he could pull it off with just his own talents. Stealing a Chaos Emerald was a dream for any thief, especially since the precious gems had been lost for decades now, but to steal all seven of them? That would earn him the status of legend. 

Official descriptions of the chameleon were vague. Another point of pride. Unlike most animaloid chameleons who picked the colour they liked best and kept it as the default shade of their scales, Jedo changed colours and patterns regularly. He had ten different identities in Central City alone, each with its own standard colour, personality, and behaviour. When he was on a job, his normal colour was none at all - invisible to the naked eye and most sub-standard surveilance systems. About the only thing you could say for certain about Jedo the Chameleon's appearance was that he had green eyes and a horn polished down to a stump. That would help in ID'ing the animaloid if not for his extensive collection of coloured contact lenses and fake horns of varying shapes and sizes. 

Right now Jedo was hiding in a narrow alley between two high-rise apartment complexes in the middle of town. He just couldn't resist taking one quick peek at the prize now in his possession. After checking very carefully that the alley was secure, Jedo reached into his pack and pulled out the blue Chaos Emerald. It was every bit as beautiful as the stories told. And...if the rumours were true, it should allow him to amplify all of his natural powers and abilities to unprecedented levels. He could become unstoppable...a thief that no manner of guards or security systems could hold back. Oh...just imagine. 

Jedo shrugged and put the Chaos Emerald away. The temptation was great, but he was no fool. The Emeralds were too hot carry. He'd be the target of every major player in the criminal underworld, not to mention GUE and every two-bit hero in the world. Besides, with what he was being paid for collecting these treasures, he'd be able to retire a billionaire. 

Then again...Jedo's employer was the kind of person who wouldn't stand for leaving loose ends alive. He was definitely going to have to take standard precautions and acquire some juicy secrets to blackmail the old fox with if she tried to pull something once she got the Emeralds. 

But best to keep his head in the present right now. That was one down and six to go. Silver the Hedgehog's apartment was laughably easy to get into and out of, but the other five potential locations were going to be a greater challenge. By the time he'd found six of the prizes, the Prower woman should have some info on Blaze the Cat's most likely hiding place. With no permanent residence listed, you had to wonder where the heck that cat spent her nights. 

- 

"Did you really vaccuum this thing?" Blaze asked, lifting the cushions off the big couch in the living room of Silver's apartment. 

- 

An amateur would leave furniture and trinkets scattered all over the place, instantly revealing to the returning occupant that his or her home had been thoroughly searched. Jedo was experienced enough to search in only one spot: Where the prize was hidden. Hopefully Silver wasn't the paranoid type, and wouldn't search the floorboards under his bed right away. Jedo had a better chance of grabbing the other Chaos Emeralds if their respective owners weren't aware that someone was stealing the precious stones one by one. Jedo didn't have complete faith that the fake Emeralds the Prower lady had given him would succesfully fool the owners. 

The lady might know creepy amounts of secret info, but how good were her science geeks at churning out believable substitutes? Forgery was one of Jedo's areas of expertise, and he was not happy with the job Prower's geeks had done with replicating the natural shine and glow of a real Chaos Emerald. It might fool someone giving the gem no more than a passing glance, but it wouldn't work with a suspicious character who knew what a real Emerald looked like. In the case of Shadow the Hedgehog, Jedo wasn't even going to bother to try leaving a fake behind when he eventually stole his Chaos Emerald. That overblown immortal would probably be able to spot the difference from halfway across the country. 

Veronica Prower had obviously put a lot of thought into this job. The fact that her cronies had managed to track Jedo down in order to deliver her offer to him said a lot. If she could locate the most illusive thief in the world, then figuring out exactly which seven people currently owned the Chaos Emeralds must've been a piece of cake for her. 

Silver the Hedgehog, Blaze the Cat, GUE Commander Conquest the Bat, Shadow the Hedgehog, Master Sergeant Terkal the Echidna, Corporal Gordon Morvon, and Sergeant Kinetic the Echidna. What had happened to bring those seven people together and in possession of all seven Chaos Emeralds? Whatever it may be, they obviously didn't feel it safe enough to keep the Emeralds in one place. All seven of them had taken an Emerald each to hide away. Well, as Jedo always said; everything hidden wants to be found. 

Jedo had considered it odd at first that Lady Veronica Prower didn't simply offer to buy the Chaos Emeralds from their respective owners. Everyone knew she was about the richest person in the universe. He'd decided that the reason had to be that those seven were "heroes", incorruptible and untouched by greed. That was a good thing, because heroes were generally single-minded and easy to outwit. They just couldn't understand the criminal mind. Their loss. 

Which one should he pick next? Shadow and Conquest were supposedly bunking together these days, but by all likelihood Shadow's Emerald, and perhaps the Commander's as well, was hidden onboard the abandoned space colony Ark. Old lady Prower would have to shell out a great deal more money before acquiring those Emeralds was thesable. No, the two GUE underlings should be the easiest to get past. One of Jedo's many identities was a private in the GUE army with registered (fake) ID and easy access to the local army base. Gordon Morvon and Kinetic the Echidna - get ready to make a hefty donation to the make-Jedo-a-billionaire foundation. 

"God, I love my job," Jedo whispered to himself as he set off towards his Central City hideout for a change of clothing and credentials. 

- 

_End of Chapter 3_


	4. Nega's Revenge

**Chapter 4: Nega's Revenge**

Safe and sound in his secret undersea fortress, Dr. Eggman Nega wasted no time setting in motion his grand revenge against his enemies. 

The undersea fortress was in reality a hijacked GUE space station converted to a stationary marine environment. It was a backup hideout, installed in case Nega's main base of operations was discovered somehow. That was exactly what'd happened. Not long ago those pests Silver and Blaze stormed Nega's pyramid base along with a squad of GUE agents, including Shadow the Hedgehog. Somehow those vermin had not only learned about the existence of the secret pyramid base, but also the layout of it - as they cunningly cut off Eggman Nega's attempt to flee through his functional time portal located elsewhere in the pyramid. 

The week spent in prison had given Eggman Nega plenty of time to plot his revenge. Villainous schemes that he'd set aside before were now to be put into full operation. He wouldn't hold back when it came to showing the world what happened to those who dared to oppose the greatest scientific genius of all time! 

Apart from painting over all of the GUE insignias with the grinning Eggman Nega logo, and redesigning the exterior of the station to fit the rough sea bed, Nega had made few changes to the GUE space station. There were really only two things the villainous scientist needed for a suitable hideout: A lab and a factory. The station, now an undersea fortress, provided both. 

Eggman Nega was going to put into action two of the most nefarious plans he'd ever thought up. First, he was going to secure the service the Ultimate Life-Form. Second, he was going to finish the prototype for the Nega Replicoid; a robot so powerful Nega had first decided not to use it for fear that he wouldn't be able to control it once it lived up to its full potential. For the sake of ensuring the destruction of GUE and those wretched furry heroes, any risk was worth taking. 

Sitting at the massive command console in the control room of his undersea base, Nega finished downloading the rest of the necessary data from his online safe space. The key to making Shadow the Hedgehog his slave was remarkably compact. The sound file was only half a megabyte large, but provided Nega's encoding was accurate, it would effectively render the Ultimate Life-Form a slave to his will. 

- 

Silver and Blaze were still civilians, no matter how many times they worked together with GUE, but being friends with the leader of the global military had its benefits. To be allowed access to the strategy meeting of the GUE top brass, the two needed only ask. Truth be told, they would probably have been invited anyway, given that they'd become experts in dealing with criminals like Eggman Nega. 

Conquest the Bat arrived at the meeting last. As always in official matters, she wore her Commander uniform. Conquest wasn't the first animaloid to hold the post, but she was the first to have such a challenging figure to trap in a gender-neutral uniform. The tailors had long since given up. Only two adjectives were necessary to provide more than enough detail: Tight and low-cut. As mentioned before, the woman would pass for Rouge the Bat's twin if she ever decided to apply excessive amounts of make-up. Surprisingly, Conquest was by no means the flirtatious type - she did, however, know to take advantage that the majority of the GUE top-ranking members were men. Old men. 

Conquest's second-in-command was General Deni, whose name was forgotten by most. He didn't wear a name tag, but was easily identifiable as the loudest and most arrogant idiot in the vicinity, though he'd certainly prefer that you recognise him as the one with the largest amount of stars. He and the Commander had grown to despise each other. Conquest's attitude, however, had softened considerably after the General was horribly murdered by a Metal Sonic copy in an alternate timeline. 

"So what do we know?" Conquest asked her friends and officers. 

"Eggman Nega headed due West towards the ocean border then disappeared," said an interchangeable officer, looking over the notes handed to him. "Satellite scans suggest that Nega has flooded the entire outer coast line with scan displacement generators. By the time we're able to clean up this mess and get a clear shot, he'll be long gone." 

"Maybe Nega's got an island or an underwater base out there?" Silver suggested. 

"Don't be stupid!" the General barked. "That tub of lard is on the run! Our troops cleared out his first base, and that pyramid was his back-up, you be sure of it. Guy's probably just looking for some rock to hide under now!" 

Conquest the Bat very pointedly did not voice the fact that the General had opposed the plan to attack Nega's pyramid every step of the way. What she did say was "If he's spent the resources to make sure he'd be able to cover his escape, then he must have somewhere to run to. We should send GUE scout subs into the area." 

"Sure," said the General, and then more in character added "and while you're at it, why not send your skunk boyfriend along to sniff out Nega with his special powers?" 

"Hedgehog," said Shadow. 

"Skunk, hedgehog, same deal," said the General dismissively, immediatelly gaining yet another helping of hatred from every animaloid in the room. Conquest had tried to have General Deni court-martialled more than once, but every time the attempt had led to nothing more than a waste of time and money, and a self-satisfied gloat from the General. The guy went far, but never so far that his own elite team of military lawyers couldn't twist the truth well enough to leave him smell of roses in any court. 

Silver caught the brief spark of flame from Blaze's direction, even though it couldn't have lasted more than a fraction of a second. One never had to wonder about the emotional state of a pyrokinetic. There was a reason why Blaze kept herself so cold and reserved most of the time. 

Not long after that a lieutenant interrupted the meeting, saying there was an urgent phone call. Conquest naturally dismissed it, but when the young officer explained that the caller identified himself as Dr Eggman Nega, she immediatelly accepted it. 

"Actually," the lieutenant said, "he says he's calling for Shadow the Hedgehog." 

"What?" said Conquest. 

"Huh," said Shadow. 

"Send the call through on speaker. I assume you've already started the trace engine?" said the Commander. 

"Yes, ma'am. Of course." 

There was no mistaking the voice, a minute later. 

"Shadow the Hedgehog, the Ultimate Life-Form, greatest creation of Professor Gerald Robotnik," said Nega, speaking like he was listing up a series of achievements. "You were created for the purpose of becoming a stepping stone on the way to true immortality, the key to curing Professor Gerald's beloved granddaughter of her terminal illness. But your purpose was altered twice by the very man who created you. First, he made you his champion to upset the evil plans of the alien Black Arms and save Earth. But secondly, the Gerald turned insane by grief and failure made you the means to strike revenge against humankind by destroying Earth..." 

"I know my history," said Shadow without emotion. 

"Of course you do. But don't you wonder how Gerald managed to reprogram your mind to make you his evil pawn by the end? How he altered your memories into false motivations for destruction? How he gave you the knowledge to enact his evil plan fifty years after his death?" 

"It doesn't matter. My past has no power over me now." 

"Muahahaaahaaa!! You really believe that, don't you, Shadow? Let me to prove you wrong!!" 

The last part of the transmission was a painfully loud screeching noise like the scratching of an ant through the biggest loudspeaker in existence. Everyone in the room immediatelly covered their ears and let out a cry of shock and pain. Shadow himself reacted the same at first, but then simply stood motionless until the noise ended. 

Conquest cursed and slammed her fist into the table. "We'll not be mocked by that renegade scientist! Lieutenant, tell me we got a clean trace of that call!" 

"S-sorry ma'am. The signal trace rebounded back to this location. Unless he's hiding under the table, we missed him." 

There was a humorous moment as everyone in the room resisted the urge to take a quick peek under the long rectangular table they were seated around. 

"Shadow, are you alright?" Conquest asked her lover with concern in her voice that she should know the General would use against her later. 

"C-c-c-c..." Shadow stuttered quietly. 

"Whassamatter now!?" the General burst out. He'd obviously nearly suffered a heart-attack when that painfully loud noise blasted through the room. 

Shadow looked up. The look of hostility on his face was unpleasantly natural to him, almost as dangerously foreboding as the red glow emanating from his body. 

"CHAOS BLAST!!" Shadow shouted as he relasead the violent chaos shockwave in every direction. 

The table and surrounding furniture was turned into splinters, and the assembled GUE brass were thrown into the walls like rag dolls. Silver instinctively wrapped himself in psycho-kinetic energy to withstand the blast, at the same time grabbing Blaze and Conquest with his power to keep them safe. As ominous smoke rose around him, Shadow turned his back to his friends and allies and stormed out of the room. Sounds of screams and explosions suggested that he dealt similarly with any GUE members that stood in his way. 

Silver didn't put down Blaze and Conquest until Shadow was gone. It was cowardly, but he knew he had no realistic chance of defeating Shadow in an all-out battle, and besides he didn't want to hurt the black hedgehog if he was somehow being controlled against his will by Nega or something. 

"What just happened?" Blaze asked. 

"Nega did something to Shadow. We've got to stop him before it's too late," said Conquest, surprising Silver who expected her to worry more about challenging her boyfriend in real combat. 

His recent adventures had had an impact on Silver the Hedgehog. He didn't respond with "But...how?" or anything like that, but instead stopped up and thought rationally about the problem. It didn't take him long to see the obvious solution. "Chaos Control," he said. "If I can freeze Shadow using Chaos Control we can capture him to find out what's wrong without having to hurt him." 

"Good plan," said Blaze, "but your Chaos Control ability is nothing compared to Shadow's. You'll need to use a Chaos Emerald. Maybe two... There's no one in the world more experienced than Shadow when it comes to using Chaos Control." 

"Right," said Silver. "You go get your Emerald, and I'll get mine. Commander, can you have your agents track Shadow in the meantime, so we'll know where to find him when we're ready?" 

"I'll go after him myself," said Conquest with impenetrable determination. 

"Don't try to fight him," said Blaze. 

"Don't worry, I'm not crazy..." 

The General was back on his feet, swaying slightly. "That traitor! That terrorist! Send everything after the damn skunk! Navy! Army!! Air force!!! Space fo-EIGH!!" 

Conquest rubbed her fist after sending the blowhard back to dream land. "Sergeant Terkal," she called into the communicator on her wrist. "Get up here on the double!" 

"I'll try to keep Shadow from hurting anyone," she said. "Terkal can make sure that idiot doesn't cause even more trouble from our end. You two hurry and get those Chaos Emeralds so we can stop Shadow before he does something we'll all regret. Then...we'll make Eggman Nega pay for this!" 

- 

Nega's villainous laughter echoed against the reinforced walls of his undersea fortress. 

- 

_End of Chapter 4._


	5. History Repeated Once Again

**Chapter 5: History Repeated Once Again**

At that moment Shadow had seen himself back there, at the moment when his nightmares began. Pounding against the impenetrable glass of the escape capsule, he watched Maria collapse on the floor. A trikle of blood from her gunshot wound spread on the metal floor of the Space Colony Ark's ejection station. 

Shadow cried out the girl's name once again. She looked up at him, and he heard her voice clearly... 

"Shadow, these evil people are after you. They want to destroy you. Trust no one...no one...no one can be trusted except my family. Only Robotniks know what is right for the world and for you, Shadow. Trust and obey them. Everyone else will hunt you down. Please...do it for me...find my family and help him...Shadow!" 

Shadow the Hedgehog's scream of agony lasted until after the capsule cleared the colony and began its descent to Earth. 

After the vision ended, Shadow recognised his situation clearly. He was surrounded by the very evil ones who'd taken from him everything he cared for. The corrupt and vile military - what was he doing in their midsts? They must've tricked him somehow. He had to get away. 

"Shadow, are you alright?" the bat at the head of the table asked with mock concern. 

He had to fight back. Get away. His powers...he...he had powers, yes. C-Chaos...powers? 

"Whassamatter now!?" a corpulent human officer burst out. 

Shadow looked up. He let his hatred for these murdering monsters rise to the surface, and as he did so the knowledge he needed returned to him. 

"CHAOS BLAST!!" Shadow shouted, releasing the violent energy that brimmed up inside him, called by his hatred and anger. 

The effect was everything he hoped for. Let the leaders of this corrupt military feel his vengeance. But...what was this? That white hedgehog used some strange power to protect himself and those women. Of course, the military must've brought in that evil hedgehog to keep Shadow in check in case he realised the truth as he'd just done. He had to escape. Couldn't fight here in the heart of the villains' lair. 

Shadow turned his back to his enemies and stormed out the door. There were more people dressed in army uniforms beyond. Shadow dealt painfully with any of them that dared stand in his way. If this was a GUN base, then those vile mechs that Professor Gerald, in a moment of misguided ignorance, had helped design for the military would certainly be along shortly. Shadow could handle beetles and droids, but not an entire army all by himself. He had to hurry. As it turned out, the first robot adversary Shadow faced on his way through the base was a humanoid combat droid with the insignia GUE painted on its exterior for some reason. Shadow didn't give it much thought, but tore through the robot violently, using the hedgehog spin as efficiently as only one other hedgehog had ever known how. 

This was no good. Too many corridors. Too many enemies. He had to escape. Use his powers to escape...but to where? Of course. Only one place. 

"Chaos Control!" Shadow shouted, then vanished in a flash of blue light. 

- 

Silver reached past the loose floorboard under his bed and pulled out the blue Chaos Emerald. 

"So where did you hide your Emerald?" he asked Blaze, standing behind him in the doorway. 

"I've had it with me the whole time," Blaze answered. 

As Silver watched, Blaze extended her open hand. One quick movement, and suddenly it contained a red Chaos Emerald far too large to be concealed in her fist. 

"How did you do that?" Silver asked. 

"It's easy. You just fold the Emerald into itself. I mean, well, it's easier to do than to explain. How did you think Sonic the Hedgehog managed to carry so many Emeralds around with him on his adventures?" 

"Let me try." 

Silver tried several times until he finally gave up. He complained that his Emerald must be broken, which got a laugh from Blaze. In the dim light coming from beyond the tightly closed shades, neither Silver nor Blaze notice anything odd about the blue Chaos Emerald. 

That was all the time for games there was. Silver and Blaze had a job to do, challenging the Ultimate Life-Form and trying to defeat him using the very technique that he had mastered long before they were even born. 

- 

Private Jedo of the Guardian Units of Earth couldn't believe his luck. He wasn't sure what'd happened in the central administration building of this GUE army complex, but it was an even better distraction than he could've concocted himself. He was actually a tad curious himself, but he knew for a fact that curiosity killed the opportunity for an easy prize - and a cat, for some reason. 

Aw, all of the low-ranking soldiers were outside, wondering what was going on since the big siren went off. No one left guarding the precious soldier quarters. No one around to spot a brown-eyed green chameleon in army fatigues making his way to the lockers. Why, Gordon Morvon, what have you got in here? The lock on the metal closet was laughably easy to pick. It practically sprang open the second Jedo stuck his sharpened claw into the keyhole. He was skilled with lockpicks, but he'd learned to feel his way through even better with the old natural equipment. 

The locker door swung open. Jedo ignored the contents and proceeded with testing the bricks of the wall beyond the open space. Honestly, what kind of idiot wouldn't spot the suspiciousness of a locker lacking a rear end right away? On his second try, Jedo found the loose brick. In the space beyond was a little brown paper bag. The chameleon pulled out a pair of tweezers and carefully removed the obvious mouse trap from the bag. Ah, now that was a nice trick. An arsenic needle. Well done, Gordon. I'm afraid your little green Chaos Emerald belongs to the greatest thief in the world now. 

Jedo wondered if he should go after the two Chaos Emeralds belonging to the two echidna GUE officers while he was here. Damned unfair that the higher ranking members had private rooms, and Jedo hadn't had a chance to scout them out yet. No, probably best to make his escape with this Chaos Emerald first. Jedo didn't forget to leave behind a green fake in Gordon Morvon's hiding spot. He wished the Prower bag had given him some heads-up on which target had which Emerald, so he didn't have to carry with him all of the fakes just in case. His invisibility power could certainly manage to cover his tool bag as well if necessary, but it was a real inconvenience. Oh well. Only five left now. 

- 

Shadow arrived to find a graveyard. The familiar surroundings of the Ark were filled with dust and cobwebs. The trail in the dust said someone still lived here. Shadow dared to hope. 

"Professor?" he called out. "M-Maria? Hello? Is anyone there!?" 

The darkness and silence was claustrophobic to the hedgehog who for all he knew had only been away a few days since that fateful moment when he was ejected from the Ark. 250 years of memories were locked away in an instant when the code implanted by the insane Gerald during Shadow's captivity on Prison Island was triggered and overwritten by Dr Eggman Nega. 

"Professor!? It's me, Shadow! I'm back!" 

The only sound was the echoes of his own voice. 

"I'm...back..." 

- 

_End of Chapter 5._


	6. A Voice From the Future Past

**Chapter 6: A Voice From the Future Past**

Lady Veronica Prower arrived home late, as always. She'd rearranged her children's schedules so that she got to spend at least a little time with them every day. The kids slept late, attended lessons in the afternoon, and went to bed well past midnight. The method worked without any problems when it came to the kids, but for Veronica it meant an average day of eighteen to twenty hours without rest. It wouldn't have worked for anyone else, but Lady Veronica was rich enough to cheat. It was certainly possible to have your brain re-wired so that you instantly dropped into deep sleep when resting and got your full strength back in the morning no matter how little you slept (with a 2 hour absolute minimum). The procedure was merely incredibly expensive - not a problem at all.

As always, Veronica was met at the door to the mansion by her butler, who took her coat and quickly got her up to speed on the kids' activities of the day. This time, however, the grey-haired old Brit had a message to deliver that was unprecedented in this household.

"Lady, you have a visitor."

Veronica was not the type who lost her temper. When overcome with blistering rage, the mature fox very calmly went about utterly destroying the economy and prospects of the object of her fury. However, that approach wouldn't work with her current guest. Veronica didn't waste time asking her butler how the man got past the razor-tipped, near-unclimbable steel fences, the perimeter sensors, the little sign that said "solicitors will be eaten", the mutant guard dogs, the four recently-acquired GUE combat-droids, and the butler himself, whose icy stare could make even the most hardened intruder wet his pants in terror (the Brit's exceptional skill in wielding sharp objects would certainly be a factor). She knew that Mr Query went where he pleased. She'd known that ever since the man appeared out of nowhere in her private office a few months ago.

The twin-tailed fox mother stormed into the lounge, where Mr Query was sitting in a comfy chair, leafing through a book. Her anger found a brand new height to climb to at the sight of her children playing so close to the enigmatic raccoon. Her 8 year old son was flying around the room, holding a pink hedgehog dolly just out of reach of his younger sister. The boy stopped when he saw his mother, and then obediently descended to the floor and returned the doll when he saw her expression.

"Mathew Christopher Prower, you go to your room right this minute!"

She didn't have to tell him twice. Her habit of keeping her temper in check didn't extend to disciplining her children. The thought of either of them growing up to be worthless spoiled brats like Veronica's late brother had been was more than she could stand. They would have a better future than one filled with debauchery and an inevitable chemical-induced death.

"Mommy, look what I can do!" said little Renata Prower with the happy lack of concern of the sibling that _wasn't_ in trouble.

Renata put her hands on top of each other with the long finger of each pointed outward so it looked like a single long finger sticking all the way through on both sides. She wiggled them a bit, while looking expectantly and proud at her mother.

"That's very good, Renata," said Veronica smiling. "Why don't you go into the kitchen and Albert will give you a snack. Mommy has to have a serious talk with our guest."

"Okay. Thank you mister Coo-erie," the little girl called back to the visitor as she left the room.

Mr Query slapped the book shut and put it down on the table. "She is a fast learner," he said. "Her poor brother was so frustrated that he couldn't manage that trick that he felt he had to steal her doll in order to compensate. Boys will be boys, eh, Miss Prower?"

"Mr Query," Veronica began.

"Do sit down, please."

"I PREFER to stand. Mr Query, I'm not ungrateful for all the information you've given me, but that gratitude does NOT extend to allowing you to invade my home as you please."

"How long has it been since we last spoke?" Mr Query wondered aloud, ignoring her outrage.

The raccoon who called himself Mr Query was an obvious aristocrat. Everything about him looked expensive. The black suit, the well-treated soft fur, the thin glasses with frames that shouldn't be able to support the weight of the glass but did, the old-fashioned top hat that was an obvious antique but in perfect condition, and the exquisite ebony cane he almost always kept in hand. This was not the outfit nor the condition of a man who'd leapt over deadly fences, evaded dogs and robots, and made the near-impossible acrobatic manouvre past the security sensors spread all across the perimeter of the Prower mansion.

"A week and a half," Veronica answered. "You made me interrupt an important board meeting to speak with you."

"But it was worth it, wasn't it?"

"Admittedly, yes. I suppose that once again you're going to ask me how Project Succession is going, what the current problems are, and then you'll help out again out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Aheeheeheehee!" Mr Query laughed. He had a really annoying tone to it. "'Goodness of my heart', indeed. No, I won't try to deceive you, Lady Prower. This is a selfish endevour. The success of Project Succession will benefit me personally just as well as it will benefit you, Lady. Well, you know the drill by now, so if you don't mind...?"

As before, Veronica told him everything related to the Project. About the current progress, about the new-found problems, about the efforts to recover the seven Chaos Emeralds, and even about the deception and surprising treachery of her three top scientists. Mr Query found the last part to be especially amusing.

"Ahee! Aheeheeheehee... Ah, the unpredictability of underlings. Which one of the three was it that betrayed the other two?"

Veronica told him.

"Really?" Mr Query looked surprised. "I would have suspected the echidna. There's a great deal of underlying resentment towards chao among the newborn generation, you know. For her to prove the 'dangerous nature' of chao to the world would spark a proper revenge against their kind."

"That old story," said Veronica dismissively. "That one chao was forced into a premature evolution and then driven insane by the greed and stupidity of its echidna neighbors. It wouldn't happen like that this time."

"Are you so certain? Admittedly Chaos was just one chao, who suffered terrible, terrible circumstances, but Project Succession will result in hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Fourth Stage chao. What will prevent even one of them from going on an insane rampage?"

"You know the answer to that, Mr Query. The Fifth Stage chao will control them all."

"And who will control the Fifth Stage, the, ah, let's call it 'the Matron Chao'?"

"I will," said Lady Veronica Prower calmly.

"Good, good. Now, on to new business. You've identified the location of the pure strain of chao. Have you sent expeditions to northern China yet?"

"Yes. I sent two groups via the company teleporter. They're already there and at work."

"Excellent! When both groups have been killed, I want to recommend a certain pair for the task. Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat. They're capable, knowledgeable, and very experienced."

"I've heard of them. What makes you so sure my men will fail?"

"Let's say a little bird told me. You should contact them as soon as they defeat the Nega Replicoid and save Central City. The notoriety they'll gain after that victory will serve as a good excuse for deciding to use them for the expedition."

"How do you know all this?" Veronica asked Mr Query, not for the first time.

"I have a very good intuition. Uncanny, you might call it."

"Right. What about the Chaos Emeralds?"

"Jedo the Chameleon will manage the task. He's already recovered two of the Emeralds. Ah, yes, I almost forgot about something very important. Locate the prefix code for the teleporter onboard the Ark. You should be ready to help when Shadow tries to kill Jedo in order to take the Chaos Emeralds from him."

"Shadow the Hedgehog? He would kill him for the Emeralds?"

"Not 'would', WILL! And after Jedo is dead, the task of collecting the remaining Chaos Emeralds will become unnecessarily difficult. Far better that your chameleon thief should survive until he's at least collected all seven. What happens to him afterwards is of little consequence."

"Mommy, why can Ren have cookies but not me!?" came a sudden whiny cry.

Veronica turned around, shouted "Mathew, go back upstairs right now!", and turned back to see the chair empty. Mr Query had vanished. It was the kind of exit she'd come to expect from the raccoon. It meant he didn't have anything more to say right now. Veronica could only hope that her efforts to uncover the true identity of Mr Query would have succeeded by then.

Mr Query couldn't be trusted. The fact that all his information had proven accurate so far only went further to prove that the sneak had to be uncovered before all this was over.

"Don't you dare show up in my home next time," Veronica said under her breath.

-

_End of Chapter 6._


	7. The Machinations of Eggman Nega

**Chapter 7: The Machinations of Eggman Nega**

A few weeks earlier... 

The footsteps of E-123 Omega left loud echoes in the cavernous chamber known as the Cannon's Core, located at the very heart of the Space Colony Ark. For many years the robot had held the role of guardian of the seven Chaos Emeralds hidden away in this room. But in the wake of the Metal Mastermind disaster, it had become clear that the Chaos Emeralds could not be sheltered away, regardless of intentions. The defeat of Metal Sonic in the past meant that Omega was left with no memories of the events that played during the rise and fall of the Metal Mastermind, but Shadow informed Omega of it all upon his return to the present. 

Omega had asked only one question throughout the exchange. 

"What should I do now?" 

Shadow couldn't answer. When Shadow had found the robot wandering around aimlessly years ago, he'd given Omega a new purpose. Now that that purpose was gone, Shadow couldn't tell the artificial person what he should do with his existence. 

After a full day left alone to ponder his future, Omega called Shadow down to what had been the robot's post for over ten years. He'd found the answer. 

Shadow stepped out of the elevator and crossed the vast chamber to the Emerald Altar replica, where Omega stood. 

"Well?" said Shadow, upon coming face to face with the robot. 

"Deactivate me," said Omega. 

"Are you sure?" 

"Yes. Dr. Eggman created me as the last of his E-series combat droids. He took a poor defenseless animal and installed it into this body to serve as my power source. When that animal died of age and exhaustion, I replaced it myself. After an existence spent draining the life of over a hundred creatures, Dr Ivonne Robotnik took pity on me and rebuilt me with a self-sustained power core. Then you found me and for the first time I had a purpose. Like all E-Series robots, Eggman intended for me to battle and defeat Sonic the Hedgehog, but he abandoned me upon completion and focused instead on his Egg Pawn army. I tried to make revenge against the creator who abandoned me my purpose for being, but it was a futile endevour. I could not defeat Eggman. Doing so would only render me worthless once more. Yet worthless I became nevertheless. Now, once again, I have no purpose for being. Eggman gave me intelligence. Artificial, but intelligence still. I understand the concepts of 'want' and of 'longing'. I do not wish to know those things anymore. Deactivate me." 

Shadow nodded. "So be it," he said. 

- 

Today, Shadow was truly alone onboard the Ark. With all his memories pushed away by the volatile code activated by Eggman Nega, he didn't understand what'd happened to the Ark. Some areas were horribly deteriorated, and even those parts of the station that remained fully intact were covered in a blanket of dust and grit. 

The Ultimate Life-Form could go for unprecedented periods without food or sleep. When Shadow left the Ark to start his new life down on Earth alongside Conquest, he didn't leave anything behind on the space station. It was unfortunate that Shadow's present wandering didn't take him through the station's library. The lack of dust on the spines of the books stored there would've served as an important clue, as that library had been frequented at length by a certain someone with an awful lot of time to kill. 

No too far away from Shadow's location, a Chaos Emerald bathed in its own natural glow. 

It was not in the nature of the black hedgehog to dwell in fear for long. Anger quickly overtook despair. Depression turned to action. Even in this forbidding graveyard, Shadow could feel promise, somewhere...in that direction. He felt something, the very sensation of which made him stronger and more determined. As he got closer to the source of that feeling, his stoic expression expression and manner returned. 

This...this was the old laboratory with the best view of Earth. This was where he and Maria would spend time together before and after the experiment sessions between Shadow and his creator. Situated on a pedestal in the middle of the emptied out laboratory was the source of the empowering sensation: A white Chaos Emerald. Shadow reached out... 

"Incoming transmission. Override codes accepted. Opening channel." A sudden computerized voice suddenly called out, startling Shadow. His alarm at the sudden high-pitched voice could not compare to the shock of seeing a bald mustached face appear on the rectangle-within-rectangle computer console situated in the corner between the large windows. 

"P-Professor?" Shadow exclaimed. 

"I'm afraid not, Shadow," said the old man. "I am Dr. Eggman Nega Robotnik, direct descendant of the brilliant inventor who created you." 

"What? How can this be?" Shadow demanded to know. 

"Surely you must have noticed how deteriorated the Ark has become. I'm afraid there's no easy way to say this, dear Shadow. The human military captured the capsule you were ejected in after the tragic death of your friend Maria. They kept you in stasis for over two and a half centuries, while they tinkered with your mind in order to make you a slave to their evil ends. Tragically, the military, which now insultingly refers to itself as the 'Guardian Units of Earth', succeeded in taking control of you, and with you as their weapon they have gained dominance over all the nations of the world, and now rule with an iron fist. Because we Robotniks have always been a thorn in the side of the corrupt rulers, I have been branded a criminal, hunted by the evil GUE forces wherever I go." 

"I...I remember the capsule, Maria...and then I awoke in a room surrounded by people in military uniforms. Why can't I remember anything before that?" 

Eggman Nega put on his best sympathetic face. "As I said, you were being manipulated and controlled by GUE. It was only by triggering a secret override code implanted into your mind by Professor Gerald that I was able to set you free. Now, join me Shadow and we will crush GUE and save the world from their tyrannical rule!" 

Shadow's inner conflict ceased as he remembered Maria's final words to him. He could trust her family, he could trust a Robotnik. This Eggman Nega was telling the truth. Of course he was. 

The Ultimate Life-Form reached out and took the Chaos Emerald. Feeling its power made all the uncertainties fade away. 

"Yes," he said glowing with heroic determination. "I will help you, Eggman Nega Robotnik. These GUE vermin will pay for their crimes!" 

"Excellent!" said Eggman Nega, grinning. "Now, I see you've got a Chaos Emerald. How fortunate. It should be just what we need to make my latest invention unstoppable. I will transfer directions to my undersea fortress via this channel. It should suffice for you to be able to travel to me using your Chaos Control power. Bring the Emerald to me, and I'll show you how we're going to save the world from evil, together." 

- 

Deep inside a cavern somewhere in the lower mountains north of China, the last member of an expedition of twelve ran screaming back the way they'd come, stumbling frequently as he tried to make his way through pitch black darkness. 

It was impossible to see what the man was running from. He was in his forties, one of the most experienced archaeologists in his field, and sadly he was a man who enjoyed his dinner. Arteries stuffed with fat were not prepared to handle the unprecedented heightening of the man's pulse as extreme terror dulled his senses. With all feeling in his limbs lost, the archaeologist let out one last cry before his heart gave out. His outstretched hand fell just within the pool of light by the entrance to the cave. Soon, it was dragged back into the darkness. 

Within the hour, Lady Veronica Prower received the message she had been expecting since Mr Query's prophecy. Now all she had to do was wait until Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat saved the city from the Nega Replicoid, whatever that was. Keeping tabs on Jedo's progress seemed the wisest course of action in the meantime. According to her spies, the chameleon now possessed four Chaos Emeralds, and apparently neither Silver the Hedgehog, Gordon Morvon, Kinetic the Echidna, or Terkal the Echidna were aware that they'd been the victim of ingenious theft yet. 

- 

_End of Chapter 7._


	8. Into Deeper Waters

**Chapter 8: Into Deeper Waters**

Veronica had a dream. 

She saw a the head office of her company, only the building had become a tower that stretched into the heavens, dwarfing the scale of the surrounding metropolis. At the peak of the tower she saw a grand machine of such intricacy that its workings were beyond comprehension. The clouds parted, and she saw that the machine was a lantern, shining with seven different hues, bathing the land from here to beyond the distant horizon in its light. Then the light faded, and Veronica saw that its source was a chao...a chao held in her own arms, where she stood watching over the world beneath her feet. 

A strange sensation made Veronica look down, only to watch as the chao dissolved into gelatinous fluid and spread to cover her arms and her chest. The fluid spread faster, covering her body entirely, flowing into her mouth as she opened it to scream. 

Again, she was an observer, and she saw the creature she had become. A new Chaos, evolved anew. Its body was different than the renegade water-elemental had been, stronger, more regal, and undeniably female. The blue fluid turned to pink where the Chaos Matron's angelic wings extended from its back. The golden halo above its head was as a crown, fitting for a ruler. 

Following the Chaos Matron's gaze, Veronica looked down at the city below. It was a city no more. The tower now extended from an unending blue ocean dotted with green spots. They were Chaos, all of them, hundreds of millions of them, flooding the Earth, all bending before the omnipotent will of the Chaos Matron: Veronica. 

Lady Veronica awoke with a start. Desperate for some air, she pulled the thick covers off her queen-sized bed and wandered over to the window, cracking it open. 

What she had seen so vividly in her sleep was all the more disturbing for its reality. It was a vision of things to come. But was it a dream or a nightmare? Veronica couldn't decide. Yet. Still, this changed nothing. Even the worst-case scenario would better Earth in the long run. 

- 

Conquest the Bat had been very busy since Shadow's departure. She'd promised to follow Shadow, and she had, through the technology at her disposal as leader of the most technologically advanced military force on Earth. When Shadow Chaos Controlled away, she knew the most likely place he would go, so she wasted no time having her top technicians hack into the Ark's surveillance systems. She saw Shadow wander aimlessly and lost throughout the station, saw him go for the Chaos Emerald that he himself had stashed away there, and most importantly of all; she saw the transmission sent by Eggman Nega. 

Part of it, anyway. Nega was far too clever to let his transmission be traceable, but his genius overlooked the primitive system of surveillance cameras scattered throughout the rooms and hallways of the Ark. The camera watching Shadow didn't record sound, and only recorded half as many frames per second as a normal modern camera. The rest of the day and the following night since Shadow's mysterious change was wasted on trying to piece together Eggman Nega's words through lip-reading and image reconstruction. It was worth it, however, as by the next morning Conquest had the exact coordinates of Nega's undersea fortress. 

The problem now was infiltrating Nega's base without giving themselves away too soon and allowing the doctor and his newfound ally to make their escape. If Nega and Shadow relocated, then they might never find them in time to prevent Shadow from going too far. Based on his comments recorded on the Ark, Shadow was suffering from a peculiar brand of amnesia. Historically, this would be the third time such a thing had happened, but the last time Shadow suffered memory loss, a century or so ago, he was nowhere near as powerful as today. It was a fact that the Ultimate Life-Form's extraordinary powers improved over time. Right now the main advantage Conquest and her allies had was that Shadow was still unaware of how much he had grown since his awakening 200 years ago. If Shadow realized his full powers, then it might be impossible to stop him without killing him. That was the deadline. Conquest had no intention of letting it run out. 

Silver and Blaze were called around 5 AM by a bat Commander on her way to catch up with a luxury cruise ship passing through the waters closest to Nega's secret hideout. The pair had in fact been running around GUE-HQ looking for Conquest, who according to her officers, had disappeared without a trace. Conquest briefly explained the need to go undercover without backup. Basically, if Nega detected a GUE attack force on its way, he might flee. That was too big a risk to take. Conquest was going to infiltrate Nega's base herself, but she promised to let Silver and Blaze tag along if they could reach the cruise ship in the next two hours. She also suggested a specific meeting place... 

And so, at 6:45 AM, Silver and Blaze (both slightly airsick after the race across the ocean edge on borrowed hoverbikes) slipped into the holo-flick lounge of the cruise ship Carefree Sea. 

"Where is she?" said Silver, looking around. 

The lounge was dark now that the movie was starting. Or rather, the advertisements preceding the movie were starting. This early in the morning, there were hardly any people around. Most of the big purple couches spread in a circle around the central holo-projector were empty, and of the silhouettes they could make out in the dark, none had great big bat ears. 

"She told us to sit down in the rear closest to the door," Blaze whispered. "Let's just wait. We're fifteen minutes early." 

They say. They waited. The trailers began...

**"A time of crisis.  
A cry for protection.  
The return of a legend.  
**

**  
This Summer, 23rd Century Faux invites you to the remake of the classic story that defined a brand new generation of heroism. Starring the voice talents of Jean-Claude Van Hog...  
**

**  
'Gee wiz, I'd better get ready to race, Ace!'  
**

**  
...Little Richardson...  
**

**  
'Oh, if only I could be as brave and strong as you, oh mighty callous quick-witted hero...'  
**

**  
...and Sean Connery V as Dr. Eggman.  
**

**  
'Oh, I hate hate hate that hedgehog! Gerrrumble, rumble!!'  
**

**  
This Summer, get ready to see blue as you never have before, in stunning 4D graphics."**

Silver put his hand over his eyes. Having actually met Sonic and the gang in person, he was embarrassed for the sake of his own generation when it came to how distorted their depictions had become. Sonic was never THAT dated in his mannerisms, Tails was never THAT much of a suck-up, and Dr. Eggman was never THAT much of a comic-relief character in real life. Well, okay, maybe Eggman was laughable sometimes, but he at least talked like a normal intelligent person. 

Blaze, meanwhile, wondered why the current head of the Prower family hadn't done something about these awful portrayals of her ancestor. She decided that the reason had to be that Lady Veronica Prower never actually watched any of these flicks. Good call on her part. 

"There you are." 

Silver and Blaze turned around. Silver's mouth actually dropped open, while Blaze for once failed to maintain her standard poker-face. It was Conquest, probably, under all that make-up. Now she really did look just like her ancestor. Blaze's surprise was less for the sultry disguise, and more for the fact that she'd never in a million years expected Conquest the Bat to wear pink. 

"If you two are done staring," said Conquest after what felt like a minute, "we've got a job to do. I've found the means to reach the ocean bottom. Just follow me and be quiet. Silver, stop drooling." 

Silver shut his mouth. He was sure had hadn't been. Too scared to look at Blaze right now, Silver knew this little hiccup couldn't be good for any potential relationship between them. Knowing for a fact that they'd be married in the future didn't help - it just raised the pressure. 

"We've got the Chaos Emeralds," said Blaze, sticking to business as always. "Just get us close enough to Shadow and we'll stop him. Once we've frozen Shadow, you can watch over him while Silver and I give Nega a taste of what he deserves." 

"Right," said Conquest. 

Is my face still red? thought Silver. It is, isn't it. Don't look this way, don't look this way, don't look this- 

- 

_End of Chapter 8._


	9. Intermission A Frank Talk About Chao

**Intermission: A Frank Talk About Chao ****Evolution**

The rabbit Ramon Ichorson was by no means a timid man eighteen years ago, when he worked as a lecturer at Central City University. He compensated for his reduced stature with an exceptional ego, and hard-headed attitude towards his students. Ironically, that approach was going to lead to a prank gone awry two weeks before his retirement, the result of which permanently shattered his mental composure and reduced him to a shadow of the man he once was. Lady Veronica Prower had to spend a lot of money to get the rabbit to emerge from his metaphorical hole and leave his quiet retirement behind. 

Among other things, Ramon taught Chao Biology 301, which happened to be the minor of a young student named Veronica Prower. She hadn't put any particular thought behind her minor, other than that it shouldn't distract too much from her major in Business Strategy. No one could've expected at the time that Ramon's lecture would end up shaping the destony of the future heir of Prower Global Enterprises. 

"Settle down, settle down!" Ramon Ichorson shouted as he climbed the step ladder up to the podium. "Did you hear me? Oh, well, let me assure you young man that conduct in my class IS a factor towards your final grade. Pipe down or so help me, I'll make it the decisive one! Hmmm? Good! Now, let's begin!" 

The little rabbit's voice carried far in the massive lecture hall. Ramon didn't use a microphone, like some lecturers did. Listening to him, you could just about imagine that half the length of the midget animaloid was composed of vocal chords and little else. 

"Evolution is a word often heard in conjunction with chao. Even your textbook uses it. Well, let me just say right now as clearly as possible that the usage in the book, and in the mouthes of most so-called 'experts' on the subject, is dead WRONG! The process of reproducing traits of beings that a chao draws affinity from has nothing at all to do with evolution. Write that down! If I see any of you make that ridiculous claim on your exams, then I will FAIL you on the spot! Chao are replicating life-forms. Unlike normal life-forms, such as we, the cellular make-up of chao does not include the possibility of producing any potential cell structure. Only by reading the genetic data of another life-form can a chao develop new traits. Yes, it IS true that in some cases a newly-hatched chao will retain some traits from its parents, but those traits are merely replications of data collected by the parents. Chao DO NOT evolve!" 

Veronica, sitting on the nearest row, wrote the last sentence down in her notebook, and underlined it several times. After a moment, she added a question mark to it. 

"However, there are stages to a chao's growth that are separate from the normal means of drawing affinity from other creatures. In this class we will henceforth be referring to various chao by which stage in their development they have reached. Be aware that most chao do not develop beyond the second stage, or Stage Two. Let's see some slides." 

Ramon took a remote control out of his pocket and jumped down from the podium. With the press of a button, the holo-projector in the ceiling activated, displaying a realistic 3D representation of a chao egg. 

"Stage One," said Ramon loudly, like an announcer at a wrestling match, "begins, contrary to popular belief, before the chao is hatched. Even while in its egg, the chao draws data from its surroundings, altering its personality and physical traits even before birth. After being hatched, the infant chao has all of its abilities readily available. It is able to absorb and replicate genetic data within seconds of being hatched. Stage One ends with the chao entering a cocoon for the first time. 

"Stage Two is adulthood. The chao leaves its cocoon, grown to full maturity, and now able to mate with a fellow chao. As I'm sure you all know, chao are genderless beings. They can replicate gender traits, as most any trait, but they do not retain the limitations of true gender. Basically, any mature chao may mate with any mature chao. As it enters adulthood, the chao generally alters its physical appearance to match the traits it has identified with most throughout Stage One. Interestingly, Stage Two may be entered, left, re-entered and repeated more than once depending on the conditions of the individual chao. Stage Two ends as the chao completes its natural life cycle, whereupon it either dies or is reborn as a Stage One chao, if lived a particularly fulfilling life. 

"Stage Three is difficult to achieve, but certainly possible under the right conditions. If a chao is isolated from absolutely all forms of life, drawing affinity from nothing at all, it will devolve. Devolution extends the chao's range of absorption as a natural response. Though they do not need to absorb traits to survive, chao are somewhat naturally dependent on borrowed traits in order to sustain themselves well. After devolving twice, a chao has extended its range widely enough to be ready to become a Stage Three chao if, and only IF, the chao is given an opportunity to absorb the traits of an extremely extensive collection of unique life-forms over a brief period of time. These conditions have only been recorded three times in the length of history as happening in the wild, but have been achieved hundreds of times by skilled chao breeders. As you may have guessed, Stage Three is the Chaos chao. Sub-groups are the Devil and Angel chao, depending on the psychological profile of the chao's closest contact. The Third Stage chao is gifted with infinite longevity. It will never enter its final cocoon at the end of a chao life cycle. Under normal circumstances, Stage Three never ends. The chao may still be killed by brute force, as has been proven in the past. I'm not sure if any of you have heard about the Chao Convention in 2180 when two Chaos chao were trampled to death during the panic following an electrical malfunction that resulted in a small fire. Terribly tragic. Note that Stage Three chao cannot mate or reproduce. 

"Stage Four? Well, I suppose I could just mention the guardian god Chaos and the cataclysm of Station Square in the late twentieth century. I'm sure you all remember you history. Let me make it clear, though, that Chaos was no god. There was nothing divine or supernatural about a chao that had reached Stage Four. How did it happen? According most scholars I've spoken to, the chao that became Chaos was native to the area surrounding the shrine of the Emeralds in the Mystic Lands ruled by the Echidna tribe. It is not certain how it happened, but the most likely scenario is that this chao somehow absorbed the traits of the seven Chaos Emeralds safeguarded within the shrine. The chao changed quite drastically, but still retained some semblance of its former self. It no longer responded to simple animals, but actually managed to draw its primary affinity from the element of water itself - basically, it became a water-elemental. Far more interesting is the fact that Chaos was immortal. Although destroyed many times, nothing prevented the Stage Four chao from reforming its physical shape, none the worse for wear. Another noteworthy matter is the fact that every time Chaos absorbed an Emerald to increase its power, it choose a shape recognizable in nature. Perhaps it was responding to data absorbed earlier on in its life, or perhaps it could draw affinity across a distance. Scholars are still uncertain of the Stage Four chao's fate. Eye witness accounts say it rose up into the heavens alongside the spirit of an Echidna princess. Sentimental drivel. More likely, I believe, that the Stage Four chao merely locked itself away from civilization. As an immortal, it cannot possibly be dead. 

"Though some would make the ludicrous claim that there might exist another stage of development beyond Stage Four, you needn't bother about that. I admit that I've played around with the theory myself when I was younger, but I eventually conceded that in all likelihood, the fourth stage of chao development is the final one. Granted, Chaos lacked certain abilities one would imagine a natural development of the chao creature would retain, but with immortality and potential to destroy the world, how much greater could a chao become?" 

Veronica raised her hand. 

"Yes, ah...miss Prower, is it?" Ramon said, making a commendable effort to disguise the fact that the twin tails were a dead give-away. 

"What would a Stage Five chao be like?" she asked. 

Ramon chuckled. "Well..." he began. 

- 

_End of Intermission._


	10. Within the Darkness

((What an unusually long chapter. Unusual for me, anyway. Enjoy.))

**Chapter 9: Within the Darkness**

Dr. Eggman Nega inserted the white Chaos Emerald into the slot. There was a faint hum from the large robot as the energy started to flow through its circuits.

-

Silver, Blaze and Conquest shot through the water, traveling deeper. Already the cruise ship was out of sight, but there was still no sign of an end to the murky darkness the three were descending into. All three animaloids were equipped with oxygen re-breathers and propulsion packs. Silver had found to his surprise and disappointment that using his psychokinesis to move fast was far more difficult under this much water pressure than when there was nothing more than gravity holding him back. Blaze, on the other hand, could shoot through the water like a torpedo easily, if not for the danger of leaving her friends behind in boiling temperatures. Conquest, as the only member of the group who didn't need superpowers to fly, was the most ill-adapted to moving in water. She was having a lot of trouble keeping up with Silver and Blaze.

Eventually, as the trio reached a depth no unshielded human would be able to survive, the monstrous hulk of Nega's fortress came into view. Only the alien lights surrounding the submerged space station allowed them to discern it from the undersea mountains surrounding it. Silver realized that the three of them were sitting ducks. Only Blaze would be able to move out of the way fast enough if Nega decided to fire a torpedo or fling mines in their direction, and hanging on to her was out of the question, as he and Conquest would end up scathed and stewed in seconds. Blaze's pyrokinetic abilities didn't extend to rendering others immune to the heat of her flames. As it happened, the feline was thinking the same thing, as she gestured widely for Silver and Conquest to move out of her way.

Silver and Blaze had shared far too many dangerous adventures for him to try to hold her back at this point. Besides, as Blaze would be only too happy to point out, she had a better track record of saving his life than he had of saving hers. While Silver and Conquest made their own slow progress downward, Blaze propelled herself towards the fortress like a burning dolphin. She was going to have a major head-start, but at least she was the most sensible member of the gang, and would know better than to try to engage Shadow by herself.

-

"Who are they?" Shadow asked.

While Nega finished configuring his creation to properly harness the energies of the Chaos Emerald, Shadow had been watching the three invaders on the monitor ever since the computer loudly announced that intruders were inbound. This part of the former space station had been intended for research and development of experimental technology - Nega had barely had to do a thing to convert the premises to fit his needs.

"Silver the Hedgehog, Blaze the Cat and Conquest the Bat," said Eggman Nega after barely a glance at the screen. "Your steward, and her two bodyguards. Yes, that bat is the Commander of GUE. It was she who instructed you to perform the terrible evil deeds you committed as you helped GUE rise to power, Shadow. Undoubtedly, she's here to reclaim you. She probably brought her bodyguards to finish you off in case her lies fail to lure you back to her."

"Why don't you just kill them from here?"

"Closure," said Nega simply.

"Closure?" Shadow turned towards his newfound master.

"Of course. The hedgehog and the cat are my greatest enemies, and as you will come to understand, the bat is yours. The only way for you to release yourself from the chains of your past is to personally kill the one responsible for enslaving you. As for me, I simply can't resist the opportunity to pit my ultimate creation against those two pests, and witness how helpless they are to defeat it."

"Revenge, then?"

"...yes. Yes, I admit it. As much as I desire to save the world from corruption and tyranny, I cannot resist the chance for revenge against the evil-doers responsible for it all. What about you, Shadow? Don't you crave revenge for what has happened to you?"

"Yes. I do." There was loathing in Shadow's eyes. Hatred would come later, once he found an outlet for his rage.

Suddenly one of the spots on the screen accelerated. At the same time, the Nega Replicoid's eyes flashed to life, and the massive robot stretched to its full size. Inconvenient for an observer that Nega generally relied on nothing more than the artificial lighting provided by his technologically-advanced visor, as the Nega Replicoid was shrouded in darkness. Its silhouette, however, was decidedly serpentine.

"I'll send a few of my inferior robots to engage the cat once she breaks in, just to keep her busy until her friends catch up with her. When they're together, I'd like you to go meet them Shadow. Lead all three of them to the warehouse area, where my Nega Replicoid will be waiting. Then, while my creation takes care of the bodyguards, you can have the privilege of dealing with the GUE Commander yourself. Do as you desire, but remember that world peace is impossible as long as that vile woman still breathes."

"I understand."

-

Blaze closed the airlock door behind her, closing off the now-flooded hallway but making sure not to seal the door so that Silver and Conquest could still follow. She recognized the interior design right away. This was a GUE space station. The military had a penchant for standardization, and the layout of this place certainly matched every GUE station Blaze had ever been onboard. Funny that she'd never heard any news about an entire orbital station being hijacked, but she guessed that the military would be loathe to let that kind of bad press get out. Conquest probably knew all about this. Unlike Silver, Blaze wasn't as quick to assume that the bat was honest and trustworthy, as she was still the leader of an organization that even in this day and age still relied more on secrecy to succeed than Blaze liked.

As soon as the flying robot drones crossed the threshold from the side-passage, Blaze ran up the wall and kicked off, turning herself into a flaming hurricane, and tearing straight through the guard bots. Her reflexes were clearly as good as ever. She didn't even have to think about that one.

There were two more waves of drones before the airlock door opened again, revealing Silver and Conquest. Blaze took care of them all without getting as much as a speck of soot on her clothes.

"Nice going," said Silver.

"No, these were far too easy to dispatch," said Blaze, looking intense. "Either Nega is already trying to make his escape, or he's got a big trick up his sleeve. If it wasn't for Shadow, I'd have gone straight to the heart of this place myself. But first thing's first. Silver, catch."

Blaze revealed her red Chaos Emerald, and threw it to Silver, who cheated by using his psychokinesis to get it to land in the palm of his hand when he miss-calculated his catch slightly. Silver had been holding his own blue Chaos Emerald all along, as he still wasn't managing to pull off the disappearance act Blaze had shown him earlier.

Conquest said nothing, though Blaze noticed her expression in response to the 'If it wasn't for Shadow' comment. At unspoken agreement, they started running with Conquest in the lead.

...it wasn't long at all until they ran into Shadow the Hedgehog.

Shadow stood in the middle of the doorway leading towards the central areas of the space station-turned fortress. With his arms crossed over his chest, he stared down the three, quickly making hostile eye contact with Conquest the Bat.

Shadow was the first to speak. "You've come to take me back, haven't you?" he said in a dark voice. His normal voice, in other words.

"That's right," said Conquest, and quickly added "I don't know what lies Nega has told you, but-"

"Eggman Nega has told me the truth, about everything. How you used me as your pawn in your insane quest to rule everything. How you hunted down anyone with the courage to oppose-"

"I love you."

It came as a shock to Blaze, and certainly to Silver as well, who went beet-red for the second time today. For a second she found herself wondering who'd said that, as it was so far from this world that Conquest the Bat could ever lower that proud facade and actually...say...something like that. Unfortunately, Silver was so flabbergasted that he didn't seem to react as Shadow gritted his teeth and charged forward with clear intentions.

"Silver, now!" Blaze shouted.

"Huh? OH!"

Silver leapt in front of Conquest, with one Chaos Emerald in each hand. He joined the two gems together and shouted "CHAOS CONTROL!" at the top of his lungs.

It worked. Shadow was frozen in his stride. Now locked in time was the violent look on his face directed towards Conquest.

"Man, he's really lost it," said Silver with relief.

Conquest said nothing. Blaze consciously avoided looking her way. "Silver," she said, "use Chaos Control again. This time, teleport Shadow and the Commander back to GUE HQ. They'll be able to restrain him there until they can find some way to help him get back to normal."

"Right."

Once again, Silver gestured with the Chaos Emeralds. "Chaos Contro-" The call was cut short when Shadow sprang back to life and grabbed Silver by the throat. The Ultimate Life-Form seized the red Emerald and threw Silver across the hall. The blue Chaos Emerald fell out of his grip and hit the floor, smashing into a million pieces.

"Hmph! Just a fake, as I thought," said Shadow. Then, after that classic line, he stormed over to Conquest and flourished the Emerald. There was an explosion of light, and then they were both gone.

Silver stood up, looked at the spot where Shadow and Conquest had been, and then down at the sparkling shards scattered all over the floor. "A...fake? But...how?" he asked.

Blaze needed only one guess. "Eggman Nega! He must've replaced your Emerald somehow. Sorry to sound cold, but there's nothing we can do for Shadow and the Commander right. We've got to go after Nega before it's too late!"

Silver and Blaze ran ahead, emerging into a massive rectangular chamber filled with miscellaneous equipment and decommissioned machines. In the center, they saw what Nega had prepared for them: A robotic cobra, over five meters tall, uncoiled and prepared to strike.

"A snake?" said Silver. "That's it? A big snake?"

The metal plates covering the cobra's hood slid back, revealing two dozen laser cannons.

"Okay, that's a bit better."

A funnel extended from the cobra's mouth, releasing a wide spray that Silver and Blaze barely dodged by levitating and flame-skidding away, respectively. The green liquid quickly started to melt away the titanium floor panels.

"Alright, fine. It's a real nasty."

But not so nasty that Silver wasn't able to grab a large shelf with his psychokinesis and pin the cobra with it, allowing Blaze to slice the metal serpent in half with a flaming drop-kick. The amount of laser blasts the two had to dodge to manage that feat was only about medium by their standards. All in all, it was a very anti-climactic fight.

With the Nega Replicoid in pieces, Silver and Blaze continued onward. They got halfway to the next door before the noises made them look around. The Nega Replicoid was back up, and it now had an identical twin. The lower half of the original was now covered in titanium plates, while the upper half of the twin was the same. Evidently, the robot had taken all the best materials around and used them to repair itself, while making a copy of the remains. It had all happened in half a minute.

-

Eggman Nega watched as his enemies ran back to fight the pair of Nega Replicoids. His ultimate weapon was working perfectly. The Nega-nanites that flooded the interior of the robot would instantly repair any damage. Better yet, as the foolish heroes tore chunks off the robot, every single separated piece would immediately start recreating its full body. There was more than enough materials in this undersea fortress to suffice for a hundred thousand Replicoids. Once the invasion of the mainland began, there'd soon be millions of them. A self-supplying army under Nega's command.

He couldn't wait to see how many Nega Replicoids Silver and Blaze could inadvertently create before the two were finally overpowered and killed.

-

_End of Chapter 9._


	11. Mr Query and Dr Pretorious

**Chapter 10: Mr. Query and Dr. Pretorious**

In the not too distant future. 

- 

Mr. Query walked onto the empty stage, turned his head slightly, then jumped back with mock surprise at the sight of his audience. He scanned the rows, and smiled broadly to the person sitting in the front row. 

"Why, hello there!" he exclaimed happily. "I am Trevor K. Pretorious, but you can call me Mr. Query. Why? Because I'm not very interested in being mistaken for my failure of a temporal twin. Hmmm? You want to know how I came to be? Well, that's hardly the focus of our programme tonight, but since it's you, I'll make an exception." 

The stage darkened, and a single spot light came on, bathing Mr. Query in a gentle glow. At the same time, a lovely piano piece started playing in the background. 

"Once upon a time there was a noble and ambitious young scientist who wanted to change the world for the better. You see, the young man found that his grand designs were constantly being banned by lesser minds. Unless he stepped beyond the boundaries of laws written by short-sighted fools, the man would go his entire life without realising his potential. So he became a fugitive, hunted by the very people he wished to bring betterment to. Long story short, he found out he could make a better world by altering certain key events in history. After years of study, he produced a cunning plan to rewrite history to create a better present. However, for the plan to work, he would need certain objects of great power that had been lost in time - no choice but to go back and retrieve them himself." 

The light turned red, and the music became darker and more intense. 

"BUT, no sooner had the heroic scientist taken his first step into the past, than did a terrible fiend come along. A cat, a devilishly evil cat burning with hatred against all things good and beautiful. Our hero knew that he had to get rid of this 'nemesis' of his if he were ever to succeed in his plan to make the world a better place, so he made a little change to his itinerary, and went back to face the cat's father at a time before she were even conceived. Alas! The attempt to kill her father failed due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, even the control of a decent plot. The events were complicated and fairly ridiculous. Suffice it to say that the flaming cat gained the companionship of her equally evil psychic father, and they both decided that they had nothing better to do than to chase the scientist wherever and whenever he went, hoping to ruin his plans and spread all manner of pandemonium across history." 

Now it was a mellow blue, and the music slowed down, taken over by slow sad notes. 

"What a tragedy. No matter what lengths the brave and noble scientist went to, it was all for nothing. He failed miserably, even at the very brink of success..." 

"BUT!" Mr. Query shouted suddenly, putting on a happy face as the melody switched to match. "The scientist called Dr. Pretorious took a little bit of inspiration from the ridiculously bizarre circumstances of Silver the Hedgehog's survival, and came up with a contingency plan. As soon as he arrived at his final destination in the past, he cleverly travelled one minute back in time to before he arrived the first time. Then, he simply waited until the other him arrived from the future, exchanged a few pleasantries with his double, and went about his way. That the second arrival didn't repeat the one-minute jump of the first created a nasty paradox, most likely, but as Dr. Pretorious was wearing a nifty device rendering him immune to the effects of temporal distortion waves (product of Dr. Eggman Nega, patent pending), there was little to worry about. The one-minute younger Dr. Pretorious stayed and completed his plan, while the one-minute older went back to the present to view the results. Aheeheehee!! That's right, I am the older one, the senior, the wiser, the free as a bird! Mr. Query, at your service." 

Mr. Query waited until the non-existent applause had died down, and then continued. 

"Now, the main subject. I like to call it 'The Catch'. As we all know, ah, well, as _I_ know, Lady Veronica Prower's illegal attempts to create a Fifth Stage chao submissive to her control ended rather miserably. She wasn't able to get a pure strain of chao, she failed to collect even half of the required seven Chaos Emeralds, and when the whole mess became public all there really was to show for it all was an awful lot of dead, liquefied chao." Mr. Query winked. "Not so anymore!" he announced with giddy pride. "Try to keep up now, folks, because the really fun parts are the chain-reactions... 

"First off, Lady Prower took some good advice and hired a professional thief to do her Emerald-gathering for her. Good call, because the pro rounded up half of the precious gems in no time, but whoops, what's this? Shadow the Hedgehog, currently mind-controlled for the third time in his life, finds a chameleon with a stash of Emeralds onboard the Space Colony Ark. Needless to say, Shadow kills the thief and takes the Emeralds for himself. Now that got really tricky, because on the bright side, Shadow was now powerful enough to kill one or both of my nemesis's parents during the inevitable showdown, but on the less bright side, Shadow would completely ruin Lady Veronica's grand plan. As much as it pained me to do so, I just had to intervene for the sake of the dear old fox sniff. 

"What went wrong? Oh, lots of things. For one, Silver was supposed to successfully trap Shadow with his fancy Chaos Control power. With Shadow himself now being the worst obstacle of all to Lady Veronica's plan, I for one feel embarrassed. Granted, I indulged myself in watching Silver, Blaze or both's deaths at Shadow's hands several times over, but it just wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be, since I knew I'd have to go back and fix that mess afterwards. For another thing, Shadow, once fixed right in the head, was supposed to tell Silver how to defeat Eggman Nega's nasty snake robots, but now he'll have to figure it out all by himself. Not too likely. He's got the intelligence of a gnat. 

"But you know, in spite of all these things gone wrong and well out of hand, I must admit that overall this is the most fun I've had in my life. Jumping back and forth along a timeline, making this fine little changes along the way until it all plays out the way I want is a challenging hobby, but a very, VERY giving one. Of course, knowing that my nemesis and her pesky organisation are resting assured that I'm safely locked away gives me a sense of freedom I haven't felt in years, and that does add to the enjoyment - it's true." 

Mr. Query paused to see if there was any response from the audience. Apparently not. 

"Tough room. I should think you would be more interested in this than anyone. What's wrong, Trevor? Feeling jealous?" 

The grey-haired old raccoon sniffed at exact double of his younger self. His release from prison had only happened once he'd become too old and frail to be able to be a threat to anyone. This was the longest time he'd spent out of his tiny room in this rest home for the elderly in a month. Based on the look on his face, it was clear he was regretting that he'd agreed to come watch a play put on in the recreation room by someone who claimed to be his long-lost grandnephew. 

"You haven't achieved anything, you worthless worm," said old man Pretorious slowly. "I was the younger one, that's right, and that's why the moment you take that watch off your wrist, you'll cease to exist! I suppose you came here to hear from me how the rest of the story plays out with your current set of changes. Well, I'll tell you... Shadow the Hedgehog died, and his bat lover along with him. As if we could ever give a damn about them. Pia still caught me and lived happily ever after. You should've stopped after getting her parents killed, instead of insisting on finishing that worthless chao scheme..." 

Mr. Query's calm exterior didn't falter in the face of his bitter old twin. In fact, he looked whimsically thoughtful, like he was considering the punchline to an hilarious joke. "You know," he said, "I do believe I've got self-image problems. You see, this is the fifth time I've killed you now, and it's just as fun every single time." 

With that, Mr. Query whipped out his tried-and-true pulse pistol and shot the elderly Trevor Pretorious three times. 

Strange how easy it was to persuade the caretakers to stay out of this room for the duration of the conversation and the murder. The last time Mr. Query had actually waited just to see how long it would take for someone to burst into the room and discover the dead body. It was very disappointing. 

Anyhoo, making sure Shadow and Conquest stayed alive seemed to be the most pressing concern at the moment. Shame the old man hadn't said exactly how those two died, though it was safe to assume the Chaos Emeralds would be involved somehow, since Project Succession was still doomed to failure in this timeline. Should he alter history just enough to double back and interrogate the old man a sixth time? Hmmm...no. No, checking the future script for every scene was too lazy. He could get to the bottom of this one on his own. 

- 

_End of chapter 10._


	12. Fight For Survival

**Chapter 11: Fight For Survival**

To their credit, Silver and Blaze figured out early on that trying to destroy the robot cobras was the wrong way to deal with them. Unfortunately, the Nega Replicoids were incredibly aggressive, and single-minded in their attempt to prevent the pair from fleeing. It was either fight back or be killed - though at the current rate they were putting themselves further at risk with each moment... 

Silver ran across the floor of the massive warehouse space, carrying a snake coiled into a ball with his psychokinesis. At just the right moment he concentrated his power into a single movement, bowling the Nega Replicoid right into the group of five identical robots being kept busy by Blaze's carefully coordinated bursts of fire. The six robots smashed into each other, ending up in a wriggling pile of metal. 

"Now! Quick, before they regenerate!!" Blaze shouted, diving into the pile with white-hot flames in her hands. 

"Hang on, I've almost got it!" Silver shouted back. Immediately after releasing his makeshift bowling ball, Silver had started focusing his powers towards the huge titanium beam visible in the ceiling above the cobras. Tearing that heavy weight loose might send tons of water pouring into the structure, but it was worth a try... 

It really was amazing how much you could communicate with meaningful gestures and winks. Silver and Blaze hadn't said a word while coming up with this plan, for fear that Nega's robots were intelligent enough to mount a counter-strategy. 

It worked!! The flaming cat burst from the pile just in time before the massive beam literally crushed the Nega Replicoids trapped beneath it, and although a web of cracks spread across the ceiling, not a drop managed to get through. The robot cobras might've had sufficient reflexes to escape in time, but with their tails fused together by the heat of Blaze's touch, they didn't have a chance. 

"So much for those slimy bots," said Silver, giving a triumphant high-five to his partner. 

"Now let's go get Eggman Nega," Blaze responded. She was about to say something else but was interrupted by an artificial hissing noise. 

Silver and Blaze looked at the surviving Nega Replicoid. Its upper half had all the original paint and the Eggman Nega logo clearly visible between its lifeless eyes, while the lower half was plain unfurnished titanium. The heroes recognised it as the original robot, half of it, anyway. Since splitting into two, this particular robot had been staying back during the entire fight, occasionally firing lasers, but never getting near the combatants. Silver started running towards the Nega Replicoid, and was surprised to see it backing away instead of throwing itself into battle like all the others had done. 

"This one has more self-preservation than the rest," said Blaze. 

"It's a coward. Watch me take it apart!" 

"And wind up fighting another wave of robots? Let's just take off. We can definitely outrun a single one of these things." 

"Oh...fine." 

Reluctantly, Silver joined Blaze in running towards the door leading further into the fortress. He made sure to pile up plenty of junk to block any pursuit, but it was hardly necessary. The lone surviving Nega Replicoid didn't seem very interested in picking another fight. 

- 

Jedo the Chameleon was having the worst day of his entire life. He was trapped between one enraged Ultimate Life-Form brimming with cosmic power, and a whole bunch of people in familiar orange uniforms holding guns of various shapes and sizes. 

It was supposed to be an easy theft. He'd hacked into the OmniDelivery Inc. database to find out what kind of deliveries were sent to the Space Colony Ark. As he suspected, the Ark's sole resident arranged for fairly regular deliveries of food and supplies. By making a fake order in Shadow's name, Jedo was able to arrange for a speedy transport to the Ark. Hiding onboard the delivery shuttle was the easiest part of it all. From that point, everything went wrong. All he found was an empty pedestal just the right shape for holding a Chaos Emerald. Then, just as he was about to rush back to the shuttle, Shadow the Hedgehog himself arrived out of nowhere, carrying a red Chaos Emerald and some slutty-looking bat-chick. It didn't take Shadow more than a second to locate the invisible chameleon and get a strangle-hold on him. Jedo thought his number was up, but then suddenly dozens of mean-looking guard-types burst into the empty lab and pointed big nasty guns at him, or at Shadow - it was hard to tell. 

At least Shadow had loosened his grip on Jedo's throat, so he could breathe. Jedo found himself looking out of the corner of his eye at the bat lying over by the corner. Was she dead or just unconscious? How much trouble was he in here? 

"Shadow the Hedgehog!" the most authoritative guard of the lot shouted, not lowering his weapon for even a second. "It is in the interest of Lady Veronica Prower that that chameleon remains unharmed. Release him at once." 

What the hell? Okay, either the old lady had some genius cover-story up her sleeve or her underlings were suicidally moronic for naming her in public like this. Maybe they were thinking they'd finish off Shadow the Hedgehog to keep a lid on things? If so, then suicidally moronic was giving them far too much credit. The death of the famous immortal would stir up way more media attention than this little power play alone could ever do. 

"Look, this is turning into a bad situation for both of us," said Jedo to the mean old hedgehog, "so why don't you just let me go, huh?" 

"Hmph! Chaos Control!" Shadow shouted. 

When Jedo next opened his eyes there was a bullet, blurred by speed, hovering in the air. The slug was pointed directly at his face. From this point in frozen time the blast from the gun muzzle was still visible. 

Shadow dropped the chameleon rudely on the floor, while at the same time tearing away Jedo's backpack. "You've got four Chaos Emeralds with you," Shadow said, reaching for the prize. 

Jedo cursed himself. Of course! Blacky the Hedgehog could sense Chaos Emeralds anywhere. If he'd just left the other four on Earth, then his invisibility would've actually counted for something when Shadow burst into the scene. Now the green, blue, yellow, azure and red Emeralds were all in the Ultimate Life-Form's possession. But not for long! Jedo wasn't about to give up his retirement without a fight, and he hadn't come unprepared for this eventuality. 

"Could you come a bit closer?" Jedo asked, looking up from where he sat on the floor. 

Shadow took a step forward. "What?" 

"Say cheese!" 

This weapon that had been sent to Jedo after he voiced his concerns about trying to steal a Chaos Emerald from Shadow the Hedgehog. It looked like a green trumpet with a gun handle, but nevertheless, it was a extremely powerful against beings such as Shadow (while totally useless against mundane individuals). Jedo had been assured that the weapon was priceless, and irreplaceable, and he could understand why. Inside this little gadget was a microscopically tiny fragment of the Master Emerald - the only ingredient that could ever work to produce a Chaos Emerald nullification beam. When Jedo fired the weapon, the Chaos Control field conjured up by Shadow instantly broke, returning the flying bullet to real time, letting it resume its motion towards a space now occupied by Shadow the Hedgehog's head. 

Jedo didn't catch what happened next. There was a flash and some kind of energy wave through the air. Whatever had happened, the result was dire: The bullet had failed to hit Shadow, who was now more furious than ever. This time Prower's guards proved their worth, however, firing at Shadow before he could pulverize the chameleon. Though Shadow managed to dodge the bullets, the guards caught his full attention, soon receiving the painful end of his wrath. Jedo didn't hesitate to scoop up the five Chaos Emeralds dropped on the floor, and make a run for it. Since he doubted it would take Shadow very long to beat the crap out of all the heavily armed men, he took a chance and ran through the corridor the guards had emerged from rather than try to head back to the shuttle he'd arrived in. He was surprised to find a teleporter at the end of the trail of greasy footprints, and downright astonished to see that it was still functioning. 

"To heck with it," Jedo said to himself, and programmed the teleporter to take him back to wherever the guards had come from. This business was bad for your health. Lady Veronica Prower could be happy with five Chaos Emeralds, or go find the last two herself. Jedo had had it. 

- 

A void pellet could certainly disintegrate a mere lead bullet, but getting the timing right on that rescue had been a real challenge. Mr. Query decided that he deserved a hearty pat on the back for that one. 

The raccon put his pistol back where it belonged, winked to the one guard who'd spotted him, and took his leave from this point in time and space. Shadow the Hedgehog never knew that his life had been saved by one of the most decidedly evil men in existence. From Mr. Query's point of view all that really mattered was that the Chaos Emeralds would be delivered to the person who needed them most. 

- 

Suddenly Silver and Blaze heard a loud rumbling within the walls surrounding them. They were currently within a hallway lined with computers designed to monitor the conditions of outer space. It was no wonder this particular area was abandoned entirely. 

"Do you think we caused too much damage to the outer walls after all?" Silver wondered. 

Blaze didn't have time to respond as a large robotic cobra head with razor-sharp fangs burst out of the floor and would've bit right into her if she hadn't managed to spin out of the way. Without thinking, Silver grabbed the head of the Nega Replicoid with his psychokinesis and yanked it against the sharp edge of its hole hard and fast enough to tear its head off. 

"We've got more of them," Blaze announced, pointing to the doorway they'd entered through. 

As many Nega Replicoids as could fit into the narrow corridor were closing in on the pair. Judging by the noise coming from the walls, more still were taking the rough approach. 

"Oh great, so NOW these things can dig their way through solid walls!" Silver complained. "What's next?" 

"They must be using their acid saliva to force their way through solid objects." 

"I don't care how they're doing it, I want to know how we're supposed to properly destroy these things! If they can survive getting burnt, crushed and decapitated, what else can we do?" 

"Drown them!" Blaze suggested. 

The tension was growing, as more Nega Replicoids emerged from the very passageways Silver and Blaze intended to head through. They must've split into dozens more after the big crash, and with all the metal harvested from the massive support beam, they were larger and more resilient than before. Silver was ready to try any idea. At least they'd been smart enough to keep their oxygen re-breathers on them for the return trip. 

Blaze wrapped herself in flames and started spinning towards the row of computers. Silver used his psychokinesis to accelerate her spin, which in turn increased the ferocity of her flames. With the robot cobras getting closer, Silver directed his spare power towards bending away the metal of the wall as Blaze pushed through. The Nega Replicoids moved to strike, but were blasted back by a massive surge of water, pouring through the fresh hole with incredible force. Silver's psychokinesis might not have worked for moving through water, but it certainly worked for redirecting the powerful flow towards the robots rather than them. 

It seemed to be working. The Nega Replicoids shook violently as they were short-circuited, and reverted back to the immobile materials they were constructed from. Meanwhile, the hallway was filling up with water fast. Silver and Blaze shared a high-five, then reached for their re-breaters. 

There was a powerful disturbance in the water, as the Nega Replicoids shook, then sprang back to life. Their glowing robotic eyes made ominous reflections in the water. 

Silver looked at his hand. "I'm starting to think we're jinxing ourselves," he said. 

"You may be right," Blaze agreed. 

The Nega Replicoids attacked again. 

- 

_End of Chapter 11._


	13. GUE Commander Deni

**Chapter 12: GUE Commander Deni**

One hour before Silver and Blaze fought the Nega Replicoids... 

It had finally happened. After all these years. Finally. FINALLY!! 

With Conquest missing in action, the second most senior officer was automatically promoted to her post for the duration of the real Commander's absence. Although she had only been missing a day, that was more than enough for General Deni to force his way into the office he'd desired all his life. With little regard for his superior, Deni cleaned the Commander's desk of all doodads left behind by the bat. One particular item that wound up in the trash would've been worth millions to any collector of grand rarities; a picture of Shadow the Hedgehog with a cheerful expression - first and only one of its kind in existence. 

A GUE lieutenant who'd been privy to Conquest's efforts to monitor the security camera feeds from the Space Colony Ark came forward shortly after Deni announced his taking over of the Commander's post "for the duration of the emergency". The lieutenant wasn't aware of Deni's track record, or he would probably have reconsidered before telling the new Commander all about Eggman Nega's contact with Shadow and the precise coordinates of Nega's undersea fortress. 

Deni didn't hesitate for even a second. "Get me in touch with the marine unit," he said. "We'll torpedo Eggman Nega and his skunk pet to hell!" 

- 

In the darkness of the ocean depths, something moved with incredible speed, heading straight upwards, leaving behind a trail of boiling water. Not far behind were dozens of silvery serpents, moving like eels through the water in hot pursuit. 

Riding piggyback on Blaze wasn't exactly dignified, but it was the only way the pyrokinetic cat could carry Silver without scalding him. Even so, Silver had to channel his psychokinesis every step of the way to prevent the heat from getting to him. Even if they hadn't left their propulsion packs behind when they first entered the fortress, they wouldn't have been enough to escape the persistent Nega Replicoids. The robot cobras were proving themselves just as skilled in adapting to new environments as they were at regenerating from any amount of damage. 

The heroes didn't like the idea of running away like this, but they had to face reality. If they tried to fight the Nega Replicoids underwater, they would definitely lose. Blaze might survive for a while, but Silver would be a sitting duck from the start, and sooner or later they would both end up dead no matter what they tried. The robots would never tire out, and trying to destroy them wasn't an option anymore, as all previous attempts had only resulted in even more cobras to contend with. 

The water grew clearer as Blaze carried them both closer to the surface. Eventually, when it started to seem as if they'd never feel dry air again, Blaze burst through the water, and for a moment the wet animaloids were brilliantly lit by the light of noon...then Blaze's stamina ran out. With his heart in his throat, Silver found a previously untapped resource of will as he looked down to see his unconscious friend falling down to a sun-lit surface filled with vicious cobra heads, snapping wildly. The fatigue from keeping his psychokinesis active during the entire ascent didn't matter now. Silver poured on his powers to drop faster than normal gravity permitted. He caught Blaze's limp arm at the last second, pulling her higher before the robotic maws could get hold of her. The cruise ship they'd used as their starting point for this marine adventure was a lot further away from this position now, but Silver didn't care. He'd already pushed himself past his limit and was riding on pure stubbornness now. With this much adrenaline pouring through his system, he couldn't feel a thing, but afterwards, if he survived this, he was going to have a record-breaking migraine. 

Silver made it nearly all the way to the cruise ship, far further than he would've ever thought possible in a normal state of mind, but still not far enough. Eventually, no matter how many hormones were trying to convince it otherwise, his body had to accept that there was a limit to how far it could be pushed without the aid of a Chaos Emerald. Silver dropped like a stone. Incredibly, even then he didn't let go of Blaze. 

The impact made a thump noise rather than a splash. 

- 

"Multiple electrical anomalies on-screen, sir!" 

Captain Raskal of the Spearhead-class GUE submarine nodded. The sonar picked up dozens of unmistakable combat droids, all single-mindedly closing in on a their direction. So Dr. Eggman Nega was finally making outright attacks instead of playing his shadow games as usual. Well, Raskal had his orders, and he was only too happy to carry them out. This era of peace didn't sit too well with a military man like the captain. He'd jump at any opportunity for some real action. 

"Fire torpedoes at the anomalies," he ordered. "Relay to the other subs to keep on course for Nega's base. We can handle these measly targets ourselves." 

- 

The water thrown by the explosion splashed over the two unconscious animaloids lying where they'd fallen on top of the submarine sticking just slightly out of the water. Blaze woke up first, and raised her head to see an ominous sight. The surface of the water surrounding the sub was littered with fragments of destroyed Nega Replicoids. She knew by now that the vibration of the pieces was no illusion. She could only hope that the lack of any metallic materials around meant there'd be no more robots than there had been before this time. That was to say, no metal except for the sub itself, and come to think of it, how had the robots managed to remove so much of the walls and materials inside the warehouse when they were in pieces? 

"Nanites," Blaze said to herself as realisation dawned. "Oh no." 

Ignoring the protests from her aching muscles, Blaze got up. If her guess was right, the two of them and all the people onboard the submarine were headed for certain doom. They had to warn the people inside and get them to evacuate somehow. Silver wasn't responding. Blaze heaved the hedgehog over her shoulder for the second time in under twenty minutes. Her back didn't like that at all, but she wasn't in any mood to listen. 

Blaze ran across the navy-blue surface of the submarine until she found a hatch. It was sealed tight, but with a bit of loving attention the lock simply melted away. Blaze dropped inside, and immediately found herself to be redundant, as a computerised voice announced "WARNING! HULL BREACH DETECTED! HULL BREACH DETECTED! All crew follow lit signs to escape pods!" At least it was convenient. Modern day submarines were so gigantic that crew members could easily get lost inside during a panic. The feline intruder who had no idea where to go was equally grateful for the standard safety precautions. 

Even as Blaze carried Silver through the narrow passageways of the GUE submarine, the first of the new-born Nega Replicoids started eating their way through the outer walls of the sub, releasing yet more metal to feed the creation and restoration of their kin. There had been 53 robot cobras chasing after Silver and Blaze. In ten minutes' time there would be nearly a thousand of malicious machines, and with the high-quality materials of the GUE sub, they would be even more powerful than before. 

- 

Efficiency of military communications had certainly improved by leaps and bounds since the twenty-first century. Commander Deni knew of the Spearhead's fate only moments after it was swallowed by the ocean. A weak leader like Conquest, Deni knew, would've wasted time with pointless data analysis and strategy meetings. Deni would make no such mistakes. HE was the leader of GUE, HE knew what course of action was best. He wouldn't let his underlings mock his authority behind his back by acting with weak resolve like that stupid bat. 

"Move the orbital defences into place before those worms get anywhere near the coastline, and torch Eggman Nega's pathetic little army. If we let those things get anywhere near Central City, the people will lose all faith in their military's ability to protect them." 

- 

Eggman Nega laughed. His booming laughter echoed in the confines of his command room. That the GUE Commander herself would join in the invasion force that attacked his base was a surprise even to him. Although she'd disappeared along with Shadow, she clearly was out of touch with her own forces. The Guardian Units of Earth were playing right into Nega's hands with such impressive stupidity that there was no doubt that that calculating bat was well out of the command chain. 

The reason why Nega had originally decided not to use the Nega Replicoid in his plans for world conquest was simple: He had no way of stopping them from multiplying once they'd started. For now the robots remained fully under his control, but once they destroyed Central City, there'd be millions of them, then billions, and soon there'd be no technology in the world powerful enough to keep that many robots in tow, because all it took was a single Nega Replicoid gone out of control to spark an unstoppable robot flood. 

Time to build another temporal escape route, Eggman Nega decided. Just in case. He might still have time to issue the stand-down order to his Nega Replicoid army once they'd annihilated GUE, but if it were already too late by then, he'd better have his Plan B ready. 

- 

_End of Chapter 12._


	14. The Last Two Emeralds

**Chapter 13: The Last Two Emeralds**

The satellite laser bombardment was completely successful. Although all three subs were lost, the majority of their crews were evacuated in time. It counted as a victory, and GUE Commander Deni wasted no time announcing it as such to the media. 

With Nega's minions taken care of, Deni had one more important matter to take care of himself before he took charge of the glorious mission to track down and execute the villainous scientist once and for all. The matter was in his new office. It was small, rectangular, set in the wall, and made of solid steel. Because Deni didn't know how to find the combination to Conquest's safe, he settled for the second best thing, his new secretary. 

"You want me to do what?" Terkal the Echidna asked indignantly. 

Master Sergeant Terkal had been given a special part-time post as the GUE Commander's personal secretary shortly after the Metal Mastermind crisis ended. The promotion was a symbol of gratitude, and carried with it the privilege of not being answerable to any GUE officer but the Commander herself. Terkal had been more than happy to use that privilege to talk back at wind-bags like General Deni. Terkal would never have imagined a nightmare scenario like this. 

"I want you to use your brute strength to open this safe for me, and from now on you'll learn to address me as 'sir', you miserable ground-hog!" 

"I'm an echidna, SIR, and in case you forgot, this ain't your office, SIR. You're just the babysitter until the real Commander gets back, SIR!" 

Deni's face changed colour. He made an impressive leap towards the reddish-purple of Terkal's fur before he exploded. 

"HOW DARE YOU ADDRESS YOUR SUPERIOR OFFICER LIKE THAT!? I could have you court-martialled, you insufferable furry midget!" 

Terkal had always hated the corpulent general. To have to follow his orders and respond with respect was more than he was prepared to handle. "To hell with you!" he roared, and punched the wall beside him. 

The deep indentation left by the echidna's fist was evidence that a blow like that would've been fatal if delivered to any normal human, no matter how bloated he was. Deni didn't seem to notice the implication. However, the new Commander changed his approach slightly. "What about your men?" he asked, lowering his voice. "Your fellow ground-hogs from your magical floating island. Do you know how little it would take for me to have them all reassigned to the martian patrol unit? A few slips in the paperwork, and they'd never be dismissed from their new responsibilities up there. Abandon my army now, Sergeant, and your underlings will never see their island ever again." 

There was an unpleasant noise as Terkal started grinding his teeth, looking up at Commander Deni with the kind of loathing that normally meant instant death when generated by an Angel Echidna. 

_((Angel Echidnas are empowered by the Master Emerald from birth, gifting them with supernatural strength, resilience, and powers in connection with the ME. Non-Angel Echidnas are no stronger than an average animaloid. Having read the prequels, you already know this stuff.))_

Without a word, Terkal stormed over to the safe and in one quick movement tore it open. 

"Excellent. You may return to your duties now," said Deni, grinning with satisfaction. 

Terkal left without looking at the man's face. He was trembling slightly, and knew well that he was one single thing straw short of blacking out into a murderous rampage. Actually, he probably wouldn't go that far, but right at that moment he had a hard time believing otherwise. 

There was only one thing in the safe. Feeling excited, Deni reached for the purple Chaos Emerald. Incredible! One of the seven legendary vessels of ultimate power. They weren't lost from the world after all! 

_((Prior to the beginning of the trilogy, Shadow the Hedgehog rounded up all seven Chaos Emerald and hid them away on the Ark. With the gems gone unaccounted for for over ten years, many people had started to believe they were gone forever. Again, you know this.))_

Deni knew that with the Chaos Emeralds he could make all his wildest dreams come true. Oh, no wonder Conquest had kept this treasure hidden. She must've been using its power to manipulate her way into her current position. Yes, of course! Deni understood now that the treacherous bat had only achieved so much through misuse of this incredible power. No wonder he was the only person in the top brass who saw her for the pathetic leader she really was. Yes, of course. Deni's strength of will was so great that he, he ALONE was able to resist Conquest's manipulations using the Chaos Emerald. 

The new Commander no longer feared the return of Conquest the Bat. With this evidence he was sure he could have her brought up on charges and dismissed from her duties permanently. Once he exposed her for what she was the other generals would fall behind Deni as the true and rightful leader of GUE! 

- 

Lady Veronica Prower was so happy to receive the five Chaos Emeralds that she even agreed to speak with the thief in person. Of course, in person meant via radio transmission. Prower's goons escorted Jedo into an empty room somewhere in the depths of the unfamiliar building he'd arrived in at the other end of the teleporter. There was a lamp, a chair and a table, and that was about it. A little black box was placed on the table before the chameleon. He was assured that Lady Prower could see and hear him, whereas he would only hear her voice. 

"You want me to do what?" Jedo the Chameleon asked indignantly after a brief briefing. 

"I want you to use your talents retrieve the sixth Chaos Emerald from the GUE Commander's office. Then, I want you to stick to Silver the Hedgehog like glue, and get the seventh Chaos Emerald from him as soon as he gets his hands on it." 

"Listen lady, I told you, I'm quitting this job!" Jedo barked back. "Five-sevenths of what you promised me will be fine. I can cut back on a few luxuries when I retire." 

"That won't do," Veronica responded. "You will get paid when I have all seven Chaos Emeralds. Any fewer is useless. Bring me these last two and you shall get everything you deserve." 

Jedo laughed, then switched back to his hostile attitude. "Do I look like a sucker? Whenever one of you snobby types talk about 'deserving' it always means you're gonna waste your hired help as soon as they've done the job. C'mon, who's stupid enough to fall for line?" 

"I understand. I apologize for giving you the wrong impression, Jedo. Your payment will be seven diamonds, perfect cut and exactly the same size as the Chaos Emeralds you deliver to me." 

"That's right... And in case anything happens to me afterwards, then every major media outlet in the world is going to get the fool scoop on what you're up to, lady. All of it!" 

"Now, now. There's no need for that. In any case, I wouldn't recommend putting too much trust in the loyalty of your reporter friend. You would be surprised how well she responds to persuasion." 

Jedo's poker-face was legendary, but it didn't help here. He was sure the lady could sense his shock anyway. Dammit... How many eyes and ears could that Prower broad possibly have? 

"Dear Jedo, relax," said Veronica soothingly. "You're far from the first shady character I've had to do business with, and if I was to have all of them killed, I'd likely draw more attention then by simply letting them go. When your job is done you'll undergo a nice and simple treatment that will rob you of any memory of our time together. You'll wake up from a convenient coma to find yourself a very rich man with no criminal record whatsoever. And then you can have the retirement you desire, free from any worries at all." 

"A-alright. Alright, you win. I'll get those two Chaos Emeralds, but then we're done, right? Nothing more." 

"Of course. You know you can trust me, Jedo. Achieve this, and I will forgive you for losing the Chaos Neutraliser pistol." 

- 

The waves embracing the coastline of Central City were littered with metallic remnants. The incredible energy of the ion cannon bombardment had sterilized the Nega Replicoids, leaving only a tiny portion of the nanites operational. 

That was more than enough to begin anew... 

- 

_End of Chapter 13._


	15. Replicoid Revenant Part One

**Chapter 14: Replicoid Revenant (Part One)**

If a non-sentient machine could ever be considered dead, then the Nega Replicoid lying in the smashed-up doorway leading to the CEO's office was so. Mr. Query stepped over the immobile metal cobra and surveyed the wreckage. 

"How irritating," the oddly coloured raccoon said to himself. "Silver and Blaze have put an end to the Nega Replicoid invasion, but the idiot pair couldn't figure out how to get the job done until after the robots cleared their way through Prower Tower, better known as the central office of Prower Global Enterprises. Now Lady Veronica Prower is dead, all the materials necessary for Project Succession have been destroyed, and I'm left with no choice but to go back and help my greatest enemies reach a speedier resolution. How VERY irritating." 

Mr. Query had changed since his last appearance. Gone was the 19th century British gentleman's outfit, replaced with the very best in Chicago mobster wear from the 1920s. The bow-tie and the new hat were especially to Query's liking. He'd had to resist the temptation to bring along a classic Tommy Gun to match the ensemble. The second change made to further distance himself from his failure of a temporal twin was a complete fur dye job done in the early 21st century, which was the earliest point in history where Mr. Query would trust the chemicals used in the process. The raccoon was still wearing shades of brown and black, because the man would sooner shave himself than take on a ridiculous rainbow hue like some animaloids would lower themselves to. The browns were darker now, and the black stripes had been adjusted with the trademark raccoon mask in particular being reshaped to form a sharper, more intimidating glare that Query had spent over 20 minutes perfecting in a mirror. The dye job might not seem like much, but for an animaloid it was like extensive plastic surgery. 

The third change was less superficial. Through great force of will, Mr. Query made himself give up his lifelong habit of making notes and journals obsessively to bind down every major thought and theory. It was that habit that lead to his undoing during his former master plan, and as much as it pained him, Mr. Query had to accept the truth: He was not a scientist anymore. The respect and admiration of his peers was no longer enough of a goal for this raccoon; even changing the present to fit his desires wouldn't suffice. Because when he had in his hands the means to control the fate of all man and animaloid kind, what more could he possibly aspire to? He'd been a fool to waste time trying to harness the power of the Chaos Core. Mr. Query didn't need god-like power. All he needed was his time machine and his own cunning. He hadn't realised it when this present task began, but the truth was that the only reason he tried to make Project Succession succeed was so he could see what would happen. Afterwards, he'd find a new thread of history to stretch and cut to satisfy himself. 

Mr. Query leaned over the CEO's massive desk to see Lady Veronica lying on the floor behind it. The very large hole in the fox's stomach was the likely cause of death. Query was more interested in the peculiar helmet the woman was wearing. 

"Why, Veronica, is that a lucid dream device? I've only seen those in museums back in my time. An ingenious method of curing nightmares, but sadly likely to cause megalomania through long term usage. You naughty fox." 

The raccoon walked around the desk, then knelt down to remove the helmet from Lady Veronica's head. Even he was slightly taken aback when he the non-transparent visor was lifted to reveal wide open eyes, staring forever into worlds that no waking eye can see. 

"Unsettling. In any case, I think this delightful little toy deserves an owner who appreciates good fun and games a little more than you, my lady. Aheeheeheehee! Ahem! Well, I think that will be all. I shall see you yesterday, Miss Prower. Ta-ta!" 

- 

Yesterday. 

The escape pods from the downed GUE submarine automatically headed towards the nearest GUE naval base, one particular pod carrying Silver and Blaze along whether they liked it or not. Upon arriving, the pair were told that the Commander was anxious to see them. Unaware of what had transpired while they were gone, Silver and Blaze followed the summons. The person they saw upon being ushered into the Commander's office with unnecessary force was not, however, Conquest the Bat. 

"Well, well, well," said Commander Deni, resting his elbows on a desk scraped clean of personal items belonging to Conquest, and tapping chubby fingers together. "If it isn't Conquest's lap dogs." 

"What's the meaning of this?" Blaze asked hotly. "Where is the Commander?" 

"You're looking at him. But as for that treacherous bat, well, I might ask you the same thing." 

"Shadow must still have her," said Silver, misjudging Deni's tone. "If we hurry, we can beat Shadow to the real Chaos Emeralds and use them to get him back to normal." 

"That reminds me," said Deni, grinning maliciously, "of a few reports I've picked up since I assumed my rightful post. Apparently a number of men...and animals...in my army have reported thefts. Thefts of very specific items. They were instructed to report such thefts directly to the GUE Commander and no one else, it seems. Well, I AM the Commander! and I order you two to give me the Emeralds you've stolen!!" 

Silver remembered the fake Emerald he'd been carrying with him. Whoever switched his Emerald for the fake must have also stolen the ones distributed among the GUE members who took part in the final battle against the Metal Mastermind. 

"What about Conquest the Bat's Emerald?" Blaze asked, who seemed to be thinking along the same lines. 

"That one is safe with me," said Deni smugly, glancing for a split-second towards his desk drawer. "Now, I believe I gave you two a direct order." 

"Pfft!" went Silver. "We're not soldiers, or part of GUE. You can't give us orders." 

"Oh yes. Of course. You're civilians..." 

"Yeah and-" 

"TRESPASSING on military property, STEALING from military agents, and LEADING enemy robots to military vessels. You're not soldiers, that's right, and that's why in this particular situation you have no rights, no opportunities. You're mine! Conquest wouldn't have the stomach to do what is necessary to protect the people, but I do. There are ways to make uncooperative terrorists like you two talk..." 

Deni stretched towards the intercom. Blaze looked at Silver, who nodded. Then, with blazing speed, Blaze shot towards Deni and knocked him into the wall. Her assault had been so direct, she tore straight through the desk instead of jumping over it. Silver reached out, and let the Chaos Emerald, carried by psychokinetic energy, rise from the rubble and fly into his hand. Blaze somersaulted backwards and landed next to Silver just as he flourished the Emerald and shouted: 

"Chaos Control!" 

Commander Deni opened his eyes in time to see his prime suspects disappear in a flash of light. The fat man's face started trembling. As his skin changed from pink to blood-red, a mighty scream built up at the base of his throat. 

Outside the Commander's office, Terkal the Echidna smiled wickedly. 

- 

Larry the Beaver and his best friend Barry the Mongoose were hard at work. While walking around bare-bodied like the legend Sonic the Hedgehog had always been fashionable for male animaloids, it was extremely rare to go out in public completely stark naked. Stark naked meaning not even a pair of shoes or gloves. Larry and Barry did so, because in their line of work, proper claws beat clothes any day of the week. They worked at the garbage dump. 

Now in these environmentally-sound times, most everything got recycled. Nevertheless, it was often necessary to store junk at a proper location at the far edge of city limits before the stuff could be processed and removed or reused. Larry and Barry's main task was to sort the garbage between organics, artificials and scrap metals. Today the scrap metal heap kept them busy. Trucks kept coming in and dumping off more and more chunks of semi-identifiable robot remnants. Apparently some kind of big showdown had shown up and gone down recently. The beaches that produced so much money for the city during the tourist season had to be cleaned up fast. 

"Hey Barry!" 

"What's that, Larry?" 

"Check me out!" 

"Ha! Ahuh-ha! Ha! That's a good'n. Ya look real scary with that severed robot snake head there ya do!" 

"This here's really fancy stuf, don't ya think? What do ya reckon this pile's gonna be worth, Barry?" 

"A fortune fer sure, Larry." 

"Hoooo-ey!! We's gonna be rich!" 

"Dat's right, and- Hey, what's that there?" 

"What, Barry?" 

"Did ya see that thing move?" 

"What thing?" 

As the remains of the Nega Replicoids were dumped into the storage piles, the surviving nanites within the sinister machines suddenly found themselves surrounded by a mother lode of materials. Before the Replicoids themselves could be restored and multiplied, the nanites needed to refill their numbers. As each newly-constructed nanite immediately got to work constructing more, the rate of repopulation accelerated exponentially. 

By the time Larry and Barry realised what was going on it was too late to run. The first restored Nega Replicoid killed them both brutally. 

The first Replicoid didn't go forth and rampage as its kind was programmed to do. Instead, it stayed put and waited patiently until a sufficiently large force had been amassed. When it went forth it was at the heart of a thick wall of fierce machines. 

At mid-day an army of Nega Replicoids, far larger than the one Silver and Blaze had faced, slithered at speed on a direct course for Central City. 

- 

_End of Chapter 14.  
To Be Continued._


	16. Replicoid Revenant Part Two

**Chapter 15: Replicoid Revenant (Part Two)**

The flood of metallic mayhem hit the city hard. The GUE soldiers manning the checkpoint suffered horrible deaths after being sprayed by the acid saliva of the leading Nega Replicoids. The robots continued along a straight path even after entering the city. Vehicles and people caught in their way were dealt with brutally. When a fork in the road led to a storage building interrupting the Replicoids' linear invasion, the robots simply crashed themselves through the walls, damaging several of their own numbers in the process. After the leading cobras entered the warehouse, the bulk of the procession paused for a moment. The reason why became clear as the building collapsed in on itself, likely due to the careless destruction of the load-bearing walls. The Nega Replicoids then continued straight over the wreckage, as rebuilt and new-born robots continually emerged from ground beneath them. 

It went on like that. The Replicoids were more than happy to use their own numbers and battering rams. Any that were destroyed in the process were promptly restored with a fresh twin to join the swarm. Only the forefront were treated so roughly, however. The inner circle stayed safe, moving forward without engaging any opponents unless they moved too close. 

Like the fool he was, Commander Deni had wasted no time reporting his "personal" victory over the nefarious Eggman Nega to the press and arranging a grand victory ceremony. The greater foolishness of that approach was that he'd recalled most of the GUE army posted in Central City for them to take part in his ceremony. It was remarkable how much Deni got done in the brief time since he took over Conquest's post. A shame that he was maintaining a perfect track record of crippling mistakes. 

Silver and Blaze looked out over the city from their high vantage point, standing on the roof of the apartment complex where Silver lived. Inexperienced as he was with using Chaos Control, Silver had tried to focus on the most familiar place he knew. 

"They're heading straight for GUE HQ," said Blaze. 

"Looks like it," Silver agreed, scanning the city between the ravaged path cut by the Nega Replicoids and the military superfortress. 

Blaze had always been good at maths. She was able to guess the approximate volume of the silvery carpet covering the street at the edge of the city. In between trying to come up with any kind of brilliant idea on how to stop those monsters, she tried to calculate the likely number of robots that would result from an all-out offensive between them and the GUE army. Even the best-case-scenario meant that the entire continent would be swarmed in a matter of weeks. Eggman Nega was the only person who could almost certainly stop the robots, but he probably wouldn't lift a finger until he received the unconditional surrender of the global military and the world leaders, and by that time there would likely be about...four or five billion Nega Replicoids. Comparing that number to the fact that the world populace amounted to 7.5 billion and there was considerable cause for concern. 

Silver, meanwhile, was focused on more immediate problems. Between the Nega Replicoids and the GUE primary base lay an orphanage, a hospital, a rest home for the elderly, the titanic Prower Tower, and Silver and Blaze's favourite restaurant. This was probably the right time to bring up fate on charges of excessive cruelty. 

The purple feline saw that her partner in heroism was about to jump across to the next rooftop, and stopped him in the rather undignified manner of grabbing his tail. 

"Hey!" 

"You're going to fight the robots," she said bluntly in a tone that questioned his intelligence. "Even after seeing with your own eyes that nothing we can do has any lasting effect on them." 

"Well, what else can we do?" Silver protested. 

"If we can get them into an area with no available materials for them to use to reform, then we can take them apart properly." 

"Hey great idea, except they're slithering around right now in one of the largest cities in the world, and they're not gonna leave until they've completely levelled the place." 

"If we can lure them into the desert to the East, then maybe..." 

"Blaze, there are people getting killed right NOW!" 

"I know! Just shut up for a second and let me think!" 

Blaze made the mistake of shutting her eyes as she rubbed her temples. Silver, unconvinced that standing around and talking was going to amount to anything at all, ran past her and leapt off the roof. Jumping and levitating in turn, he sped across the rooftops towards the robotic invasion force. It wasn't long at all before Blaze followed, using bursts of flame to clear the wider distances, intent on catching up to Silver and making him come to his senses before he got them both killed. 

- 

Mr. Query was also having trouble. The folding chair he'd brought along for the show kept refusing to unfold properly. He didn't want to have to stand during the entire event, and he'd hate to dirty his nice new clothes by sitting on his rear up here. In the future he knew, the city council used robot drones to patrol the city and perform such menial tasks as, for example, scrubbing and cleaning the roofs, but in this time the rooftop terrain was ignored. 

"Oh, bother!" said the nefarious time-travelling evil mastermind. 

- 

The poor orphans who had escaped notice during the sudden emergency evacuation of the orphanage flocked to the windows. The approaching tidal wave of robot cobras, tearing down the street, heading directly for the orphanage, was terrifying but also just about the coolest thing the kids had ever seen. 

"Hoos dat?" asked an adorable four-year old girl chewing on the ears of her plush bunnie. 

The girl was of course referring to the white hedgehog who had just dropped down from the roof of the orphanage to stand heroically in the path of doom. Even through the tarnished windows, the children could see the bright glow of the purple gemstone held by the bare-bodied hedgehog. 

As Silver absorbed the power of the Chaos Emerald in preparation for the grand battle, the kids were in for a heck of a show. Not too far away, a manipulative villain pulled a plastic bag of chocolate-covered raisins out of his pocket and settled down into his slightly-broken chair. 

"He's come to save us..." said a bright-eyed orphan boy. To absolutely no one's surprise, the boy's name was Tim, Timmy amongst friends. 

- 

Silver looked up at the five-metre tall robot cobras clustering before him. 

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he shouted. 

As if in response, the nearest three Nega Replicoids reared their heads back, then thrust forward, spraying horrid acid all over the street. Silver flew up above the robots, and - with his powers enhanced by the Chaos Emerald - grabbed the pair of Replicoids that jumped up to grab him, and used them as a makeshift whip to strike hard against the robot throng. 

The Nega Replicoids weren't stupid. While Silver held the robots ahead of him at bay, groups of Replicoids flowed to the left and right of him and threw themselves at their enemy. The psychokinetic hedgehog levitated rapidly forward over the tightly-packed mass of robots, leaving the cobras behind to crash into each other as he moved out of the way. By picking up random Nega Replicoids out of the mass and using them as bludgeons to beat down the robot cobras that propelled themselves out of the throng to snatch the hedgehog out of the air, Silver at least succeeded in keeping the invasion army in place, stopping their approach towards the vulnerable orphanage. He wasn't going to be able to keep this up for long, though. 

If Silver had time to think about anything other than immediate survival, he might've noticed how the Nega Replicoids at the forefront of the army, the ones now located behind him, attacked with incredible aggressiveness, whereas the Replicoids further in the back, the ones now coming up right ahead of him, stayed on the defensive. With robot cobras attacking from behind and underneath, Silver was steered forward, until he unknowingly passed an invisible barrier. 

"Holy cow!" Silver exclaimed for the first time in his life, and with good reason. 

The instant Silver got too close to the inner circle of the Nega Replicoids, the robots started amassing on top of each other, forming a makeshift giant that towered over the hedgehog and threatened to crash down on him. 

"Wow!" said Timmy the orphan boy at the sight of the giant formed of thousands of robot cobras assuming the shape of a single gargantuan Nega Replicoid. 

"Remarkable," said Mr. Query lazily, as he'd already seen this part before, and was impatiently waiting for his changes to the grand script to take effect. 

Silver dodged the giant ball of acid goop launched from three dozen Replicoid maws joined together as one. The ball of acid hit an overturned gas truck (which would have already exploded dramatically if vehicle safety standards hadn't improved greatly in the last two centuries), causing a dramatic explosion, which set several buildings on fire, but was fortunately not near enough to endanger the orphanage Silver was fighting so hard to save. 

The hedgehog flew to the right of the metallic monstrosity, not only to escape its next attempt to swallow him hole, but also to hopefully get the thing to chase him. He was desperate enough at this point to attempt Blaze's plan of leading the Nega Replicoids out to the desert in order to destroy them there where they couldn't reform. Hard to say if that plan would've worked, because what instead happened was that Silver moved himself into range for the giga-Replicoid to swing its massive tail and swat the hedgehog out of the air. After suffering a blow like steel wall, Silver was sent flying, this time involuntarily, across several blocks. He probably would've gotten badly injured if a conveniently-placed billboard hadn't broken his fall. 

Unsure how long he'd been out, Silver awoke to see a hedgehog-shaped hole through a big billboard advertising Nike's new line of Blue Hedgehog-brand running shoes. As he got back to his feet, Silver didn't notice that someone had drawn a big chalk circle on the precise area of roof where he'd landed after his unwelcome flight. He did, however, notice the envelope lying right in front of him, weighed down by a strange-looking green gun. 

Silver picked up the gun and looked at the envelope. Written in curly writing were the words "Read this NOW!" Not one to argue, despite his confusion, Silver opened the envelope and pulled out the letter inside. He read what it said, looked at the gun in his hand, read the words again, and then realisation dawned. The writing was familiar to Silver. He knew he'd seen it before. 

"Alright, Conquest. I'll try it your way," said Silver, making a completely wrong guess as to who was responsible. 

And that was when Silver realised that he didn't have the purple Chaos Emerald with him anymore. 

- 

With their enemy defeated, the giant dissolved back into thousands of individual Nega Replicoids. As soon as the robots had restored their ranks, they resumed their march towards GUE HQ. The orphanage was still in the way, but it wouldn't be for much longer, unless- 

Three things happened at the same time: 

- The leading Replicoids locked their visual input circuits on the purple Chaos Emerald lying within their reach.  
- The GUE air force came into view, preparing to attack the robotic invaders with everything they had, while the ground-based army was well on its way to save the day (or so they thought).  
- Blaze the Cat dropped down in front of the orphanage, determined to carry on the fight for her friend, despite the obvious bad odds. 

All the people watching, innocent, guilty and otherwise, leaned forward in anticipation. The best was yet to come. 

- 

_End of Chapter 15.  
To Be Continued._


	17. Replicoid Revenant Part Three

**Chapter 16: Replicoid Revenant (Last Part)**

Blaze saw the Nega Replicoids prepare to dive for the Chaos Emerald just as the sound of the GUE choppers drowned out the metallic slithers of the robot cobras. 

"No!" the cat yelled, running forward. 

The GUE Shadowhawk choppers let their missiles fly into the welcoming arms of the replicating robot menace. For a moment Blaze the Cat was racing against death from above, then the missiles overtook her and struck their targets. The resulting explosion blossomed above the shattered remnants of the robots caught in the blast. Before Blaze could get through, the choppers let their second load fly. The Chaos Emerald was thrown in the air by the explosive force that followed. Blaze leapt, caught the Emerald, then was swallowed whole by the wall of fire that grew to encompass the entire block radius. 

The windows of the orphanage blew in, spreading sharp glass fragments all over the floor, and setting fire to the curtains and miscellaneous flammable furniture. It was a good thing that the orphans had taken to their senses and started running towards the back door before that happened. Given their obvious lack of self-preservation, one might ask how the kids gained that life-saving spark of common sense. Well, it seemed that one of the more caring employees at the orphanage had doubled back to make sure everyone had gotten out okay. Upon finding the kids, said person yelled at them until they, as said, took to their senses and started running towards the back door. Fate might be cruel, but not altogether heartless. 

As a pyrokinetic, Blaze had the ability to render herself totally impervious to heat-related injuries. As giant robots made of heat-resistant metal, the Nega Replicoids that survived the initial blast had the fortitude to stay animate and dangerous for half a minute or so before their outer alloy melted away. Thirty seconds was more than enough time to pose a serious threat to Blaze, as she navigated the inferno with the Chaos Emerald in her grasp. The flaming cat jumped over a snapping cobra only to put herself in range for it to whip its tail around and coil the metal serpent body tightly around Blaze. There was a tense moment as the Nega Replicoid tightened its grip in order to crush the cat to death. With her powers already utilised to the max just to stay alive in this scorching environment, Blaze might've been done for, but with the Chaos Emerald in her possession, the pyrokinetic's reserves were that much greater. It was an impressive sight to see the Replicoid explode into burning pieces as Blaze flung out her arms and legs. Finally, the heroine dodged the last of the surviving robot cobras and made her escape into daylight. 

In the aftermath, the Nega Replicoid army was left a smouldering heap in the middle of the street. The buildings all around were badly damaged. No telling how many people had died so far. Blaze watched the GUE choppers fly away. The military pilots had no idea what they'd done. This was only a moment's reprieve, before even greater numbers of Nega Replicoids arose to continue the war. Blaze wished Silver was here. He wouldn't know what to do either, but that naive courage of his in the face of complete hopelessness was something Blaze had come to rely on. 

- 

Conquest the Bat finally awoke, and opened her eyes. After a second she tried to touch her eyelids to check that her eyes were really open, only to find that her hands were tied behind her back. Her tongue felt really weird. Oh, right, gagged as well. 

After a silent sigh, the bat got to work untying herself. She was no escape artist, but the way she figured, all she had to do was use her fangs to untighten the gag, like...this. Then she just had to move her tied hands underneath her feet, which were also tied together, like...grrrraaah!...this. And finally, all she had to do was bite through her bonds like...ow! Steel cable? Crap. 

Alright, plan B. What was plan B? 

- 

As Blaze watched, feeling utterly useless, fresh, if somewhat blackened, Nega Replicoids started to emerge from the ashes. She couldn't bring herself to run away this time, even though she knew that fighting would only make things worse, provided she survived another battle at all. 

"Hey!" a familiar voice called. 

Silver levitated to the ground beside his partner. To perhaps her own surprise as much as Silver's, Blaze actually smiled. 

"Don't worry," said Silver, looking far more confident than the situation called for, "I know how to defeat them all properly now. Just wait until they finish regenerating." 

"I hope you know what you're doing," said Blaze simply. "Do you need this?" she added, presenting the purple Chaos Emerald. 

"No, you can hang on to it. It might come in handy." 

Silver stood with his arms folded over his chest, wearing an expression of certainty that continued to puzzle Blaze. 

"Silver, what exactly hap-" she began 

"Wait, there it is!" Silver exclaimed, pointing at the robots. 

Blaze saw. At an instant, the entirety of the Nega Replicoids reconstructed so far had regrouped to form a tight barrier around a single Nega Replicoid that had just been restored. Remembering the robot cobra that had backed away and refused to fight when they faced it in Eggman Nega's undersea fortress, Blaze finally understood. 

"There's something about that one particular robot, isn't there? All the other ones keep trying to protect it no matter what." 

"That's right," said Silver. "And I know how to destroy that one for good." 

"What do you mea-" Blaze once again failed to complete a sentence, as Silver suddenly rushed forward. 

There weren't enough Replicoids restored yet for the robots to assume their titan formation a second time. Instead, all of the non-vital robots formed a tight wall in front of their master bot, and all as one unleashed their firepower. Silver activated his psychokinetic energy field in time to catch the hailstorm of bullets. By the time he got close enough to strike, he was carrying a solid shield of metal pellets. Silver jumped, concentrated fervently, then unleashed his Hold Smash skill to hurl absolutely all of the projectiles as one massive cannonball thrown with meteoric force. The bullet-cluster ripped through the robots lined up to defend the one important Nega Replicoid, and would likely have critically damaged the one itself if it hadn't dodged out of the way in time. Silver flew through the hole he'd made in the defences, accelerating with a Teleport Dash, which resulted in the guarding Replicoids smashing into each other in an attempt to lunge at their enemy. 

Blaze watched in awe, then realised she was standing around when she should be helping her friend. 

Silver closed in on the many-times-rebuilt original Nega Replicoid. Dramatically, he whipped out the Chaos Neutraliser pistol left behind for him by the person he believed to be Conquest the Bat. Silver took aim, and squeezed the trigger...which did no good at all because several fresh and strong Replicoids suddenly burst out from beneath the ruined ground the hedgehog was standing on and threw him off balance. Silver caught the all-important weapon before it tumbled away, then looked up as a metallic blur of speed closed over him. 

The hedgehog opened an eye. He was still alive. Huh. 

Chaos Emerald in hand, Blaze turned away from the ruined robot cobras, most of them half-melted, and called to Silver "What are you waiting for? Get up and finish this!" 

"Right!" 

Silver got up and stormed towards the cowering original Nega Replicoid. With no copies currently intact to protect it, the robot saw no choice but to fight. It reared back and threw itself at Silver, but found itself unable to move all of a sudden. With his left hand held towards the original, kept frozen by psychokinetic energy, Silver pointed the gun at the robot's head with his right hand and fired. 

There was a blinding spark of white energy, then the Nega Replicoid's ominous eyes turned dark and the whole thing hung limply in Silver's grasp. When he let go it dropped like a rock. The two heroes looked around to confirm that none of the other robot cobras were moving anymore. 

"Are you going to tell me how you figured out how to do that now?" Blaze asked. 

"In a second," said Silver. 

First, as the letter had said, he had to get the Nega Replicoid's power source out before the effect of the Chaos Neutraliser wore off. With his powers, Silver pealed back the metal covers of the robot's head, eventually revealing the bright sparkle of the white Chaos Emerald. Silver reached in and pulled out the precious gem. There was a slight twitch from the original Replicoid as the Emerald was removed, but that was all. 

The Nega Replicoids were finished. Finally. 

- 

Mr. Query gave up trying to fold his chair when he found he was still struggling with it five minutes after the show ended. 

Everything should be in order now. Whether Jedo the Chameleon stole the last two Emeralds now, or Veronica's underlings acquired them when Silver and Blaze were sent to China to find that long lost strain of chao that was so crucial for the success of Project Succession, everything should play out according to plan. 

The only uncertainty factor left now was Shadow the Hedgehog. In all the other timelines Mr. Query had created through his manipulations, Shadow had either died or returned to normal. In this timeline the Ultimate Life-Form was still suffering from a screwed-up mind and was out there somewhere. There was no telling how Shadow might yet interfere with the grand scheme. 

Work was never done, it seemed. 

- 

_End of Chapter 16._


	18. Intermission2 Chao Cataclysm the Musical

**Intermission 2: Chao Cataclysm - The Musical**

_"Once upon a time, in a future near and far, there lived a white hedgehog and a purple cat.  
Through many exciting adventures, the two grew close, eventually earning their own little brat.  
How did it happen?  
What came to pass?  
I'll tell you."_

The scene was a puppet stage. The large box situated behind the stage contained a number of puppets on strings, including a white hedgehog, a purple cat, a silvery snake, and a black hedgehog. The puppeteer cleared his throat before lowering the first puppet and continuing in that surprisingly talented tenor voice of his.

_"I am Shadow, he of the extraordinary ego. Angsty, boring and unappealing to all. All who see me cannot help but stifle a yawn.  
Robbed of all precious memories by a fiendish program, then spirited away to the villain's undersea lair like the proverbial pawn.  
Am I good or am I evil? Haven't we done this bit before? Nevermind, two Chaos Emeralds wielded and I'm back to normal once more.  
No kidnapping bats or stealing Emeralds for me. Time to flush out the villain and stupidly end up driving his replicating robots to shore."_

Away with the Shadow puppet. Enter the silvery snake.

_"We are the Nega Replicoids, interchangeable baddies. Senseless destruction and persistent reanimation are our forte. You can probably tell.  
Huntings hedgehogs, eating metal, and sinking subs, what fun! What's that light in the sky? No, we're toast, and everything was going so well.  
Nevermind, we're back with a vengeance, time to take our talents to the big city. So sad for the supporting cast manning the garbage dump.  
Blowing up buildings, getting blown up in return. Unstoppable! Oh no, here comes Silver, Blaze and the Shadow; everyone's favourite chump."_

Next, the Silver puppet.

_"I am Silver the Hedgehog, hero of the tale in spite of obvious ineptitude and eternal cowardice. Dumb as I am, would never figure out how to win.  
What's that, Shadow? You can sense a Chaos Emerald inside that specific silvery snake right there? Then as a fool, shall bowl down that pin!  
Ow, I am taking a beating! Whoever could have seen this coming? My strings torn, hanging lifeless! Oh cruel fate, that my stupidity should be fall!  
I'd tell you more, but I'm unconscious. Awake no longer. Eyes seeing no more. Having lost so badly, my friends must clean up the baddies after all."_

Finally, the Blaze puppet. The puppeteer dimmed the lights and softened his voice to the shrill tone heard all too often when he laughed.

"_I am Blaze, frigid heroine as unemotional as a rock. Looks like it's up to me to look after my idiot partner until he recovers from that coma.  
What a lousy turn of plot. So the mystery of attraction between us two has a solution as trite and cliché as can be? Sigh Goodbye to being the loner.  
Predictable and dull, a terrible ending. Worse, this will surely result in an offspring of even greater threat to the dignity and purpose of our kind!  
If only someone had interfered and changed this fate before! If only a wise and noble hero had stepped forth from the threshold of time!_"

Suddenly the puppeteer threw his arms forward, knocking the puppet stage off its table. As the lights grew all around him and the music rose towards the grand climax, the puppeteer, Mr Query, jumped up onto the table to deliver his final solo.

"_Changes, changes, all for the better! A cataclysm of chao may still consume the world, but what an ending! Human and animaloid kind ended!  
An Apocalypse, Armageddon, Ragnarok, and more! I offer an ending greater than any written before! The end of the world, then history upended!  
The future had a good run, but in the past is room to breathe, and room to live. My Chao Cataclysm will destroy everything, and then I will be free.  
Already I have a timeline where my Nemesis will never be! To prevent weak Pretorious from stepping in, the future itself must end. Aheeheehee!!_"

-

When he was satisfied, Mr. Query awoke by his own free will and removed the Lucid Dream device from his head.

"What a wonderful toy," he said to himself.

-

_End of Intermission._


	19. Unbridled Wrath

**Chapter 17: Unbridled Wrath**

The right wall of the GUE Commander's office doubled as a television screen. 

"You're watching GNN," said the pre-recorded voice of Jonathan Earl Jones, as the title animation flowed across the screen. 

"Good morning, here are the latest headlines," the news anchor, a stunningly handsome silver-haired man, began. "'Nega's Attacks Ended?', 'Mystery of Commander Conquest's Disappearance Solved', and of course our continued coverage of the 'Robot Pope Scandal in the Vatican'. I'm Jefferson Borage, you're watching Global News Network." 

Fade out as the GNN theme played, then fade back in on the anchor as he started the in-depth coverage of the first headline. An archive image of Eggman Nega appeared in the corner of the screen. 

"Are the notorious criminal mastermind Eggman Nega's attacks really over? That's what the people are asking themselves, in spite of assurances from newly-appointed GUE Commander Reginald Deni that there is nothing to fear from the criminal scientist. Critics have not been slow to point out that Commander Deni's first assurance came less than an hour before the robot snake invasion yesterday. With costs of repairs from that attack estimated at over 300 million, the Central City council has reason to be worried. This is what Commander Deni had to say in his last interview..." 

The scene switched to a shot of Deni standing at a podium with the Former United Federation flag (an inclusion that testified to questionable taste) draped across the background. 

"Our field operatives have reported that the invasion force that attack our capital city yesterday was seeded months before the successful attack on Eggman Nega's undersea base was carried out under MY command. That fiendish villain must have remotely triggered the robot snakes as a last act of defiance against law and order when he realised that his defeat was inevitable. As you all know, the GUE air force was quick on the offensive and destroyed every last robot with a fast and accurate missile raid that left next to none civilian causalities!" 

As the shot switched back to the news anchor, the person watching turned their head towards the door. Judging by the noise, someone had been very surprised to find it locked, and was stubborn enough to struggle with the handle for more seconds than most would before grudgingly fetching a key. 

GUE Commander deni stormed into his office, finding himself facing the back of his own deluxe leather armchair, which was swivelled towards the massive wall-screen TV. As before, Deni's face started changing colour as his rage grew, dampened only slightly by the pleasant surprise that his new office sported such a very impressive television set. 

"Hello General," said Conquest, turning the chair around to face her second-in-command before he had time to reach the crescendo of his inevitable outburst. 

The sight of Deni deflating from volcanic rage to frozen shock was an impressive one. The guy could moonlight as a chameleon with his face alone. 

Conquest the Bat was back in full uniform, with every trace of that uncharacteristic make-up she'd worn during her little undercover assignment meticulously washed off. She'd had time to clean up her office a bit before the confrontation. 

"I can't help notice that you neglected to mention to the press that the attack on Nega's fortress was a failure, that Nega himself is still at large, that your bumbling incompetence multiplied a small robot force into a legion, and, oh yes, that it was Silver and Blaze who finally saved the city. I expected you to arrive earlier, by the way. Decided to sleep in? Oh, but of course, you had a busy day yesterday. I should know - I've been on and off the phone since I got back, setting a few records straight and untangling a lot of loose ends you had no right to try to tie up." 

Deni was only half-listening. His attention kept being drawn to the news broadcast, which was still relaying the story just as he had told it. His face shifted into that well-known self-certain visage of ill portends (not to mention portly). 

"My dear Conquest," he finally said, notably avoiding the use of her title, "you must be exhausted. It's understandable that you would be confused by so many conflicting reports, given your exhaustion. Why, I am-" 

"Shut up," said Conquest sweetly. "This is a recording of the broadcast that was sent after I reported my return directly to the news station. They had to switch my story to the second slot since they were just about to start shooting. Now, would you like to see the news for right now?" 

Conquest picked the remote off the desk and paused the recording, then switched over to the live feed. 

"-od day, here are the latest headlines," said the same news anchor as before, replaying his previous motions. As most people were aware, the anchor was a holographic simulation of a real person. "'Corruption and Deceit of General Deni Uncovered', 'Eggman Nega Still at Large', 'Mystery of Commander Conquest's Disappearance Solved', and of course our continued coverage of the 'Robot Pope Scandal in the Vatican'. I'm Jefferson Borage, you're watching Global News Network." 

Deni's beady eyes nearly popped out of his skull. "What did you do?" he said in a hoarse voice. 

"Nothing. You brought everything on yourself, Reginald." The vindictive bat made sure to pronounce Deni's real name as mockingly as possible. She knew how much he hated it. "The reason why GUE functions as the sole unified protector of this planet is because of trust, do you understand that? The leader of the organisation has to represent its integrity. Why? Because the person who holds enough power to conquer the world if he wanted to had better _damn well know his place!!_" 

Although twice her height, Deni shrunk down in the face of Conquest's fury. He'd laughably run legal circles around the calm and collected leader of GUE for years now. He'd never had to face how much anger she was capable of wielding. 

Even now, Deni's eyes kept straying towards the TV screen, but this time the images he was seeing and words he was hearing only served to reinforce his fears. That wretched flying rodent had given away EVERYTHING. Even if he somehow managed to shed doubt on the evidence released to the press, his reputation would be ruined - WAS ruined! 

He threw a punch. He didn't know why, didn't even think before doing it. It was a cowardly ape-like response to terror. Before Deni even realised what he'd tried to do, Conquest had his fist trapped in her palm, digging her claws into the bloated pink flesh. There was a reason other than style as to why nearly all animaloids wore gloves at all times. As the bat mercilessly jammed her sharp digits into the nerves of his hand, Deni learned exactly what the reason was. Deni sank to his knees, mouthing screams of pain without managing to get out more than a peep. 

"...corruption and misuse of his post to further his own ends..." the larger-than-life Conquest on the television screen was saying, staring at the camera in such a way that you might believe she was looking out of the screen and watching Deni's torment. 

"You're finished," said Conquest before finally letting go of the fat man's fist. 

Eyes streaming with tears of pain and humiliation, Reginald Deni didn't see the soldiers who'd marched into the office before they lifted him by his shoulders and dragged him out. Whatever breath he had left was used for screaming curses and promises of dire revenge against Conquest the Bat. 

- 

How had Conquest managed to get from being tied up tight in a dark room yesterday to being free and back in charge today? It hadn't been easy. Just as fox animaloids generally didn't chase non-anthropomorphic chickens, or chameleon animaloids resisted the urge to pick random flies out of the air with their tongue, bat animaloids didn't use echo-location to navigate when they had a perfectly functional pair of eyes unlike their feral counterparts. Un-gagged, Conquest was willing to make an exception. After a few failed practice attempts, she managed to get the high-pitched shriek right. Half an hour later she had a clear picture of the size and shape of the room she was inside. A storage closet, locked with a metal door the design of which she recognised. She also recognised the flat panel next to the sliding door. Once Conquest knew she was onboard the Ark, it was a simple job to escape. The amnesiac Shadow clearly wasn't aware that she'd had all-access clearance on the space colony for several weeks now. A quick vocal command and the door slid open at her behest. 

As she would definitely not describe in detail to the news people later on, Conquest bunny-hopped her way through the dimly-lit corridors of the Ark until she found her way to the teleportation chamber. After thanking her lucky stars that she'd had the foresight to hire repair men to get the teleporter properly functional again since she and Shadow started living together, Conquest hopped inside the futuristic machine and tapped in the prefix code with her nose. 

And that was that, for the most part. Once back in GUE HQ, it was quick work to shout orders at the nearest soldiers until Terkal could be called onto the scene. With the echidna's exceptional strength, getting untied was easy. Then, as soon as she'd gotten word of what had happened during her absence from Terkal, Conquest changed and rushed off to the GNN studio while Terkal was left with the task of digging up as much hard evidence against Deni as possible - a task he thoroughly enjoyed. 

The secret arrest order posted for Silver and Blaze was eliminated, the truth was released to the public, and GUE Commander Conquest was back where she belonged. The only problem was that allowing the full truth to be known meant exposing what had happened to Shadow. There was no point in trying to keep it secret, as Deni himself would probably give the facts away simply out of spite as soon as he got the chance. Her influence should be enough to keep Shadow from becoming a hunted target, but she didn't know for how long. 

- 

In the safety of his undersea fortress, which had survived the battles relatively unscathed, Eggman Nega laughed. He wasn't too upset about the failure of the Nega Replicoids. Those infernal engines had been a mistake, as he'd known when he originally scrapped the plan to use them. He found enough pleasure in knowing that the public was learning to fear him properly now. Fear meant respect, respect for his genius. 

Nega was far from beaten yet. Soon, sooner than they knew, Silver, Blaze and even Sonic the Hedgehog would learn to fear him. The world would be his! 

"Muaahahahahahahaa!!" 

Of course that task would be easier accomplished if Shadow would return to his side. Where the heck had that artificial hedgehog gotten to? 

- 

Lady Veronica Prower turned off the TV after watching the latest report on the status of Eggman Nega and his minions - a report that greatly praised the efforts of Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat for singlehandedly saving Central City from being destroyed by the Nega Replicoid army. Everything had happened just as Mr. Query had foreseen. It was time to contact those two and send them after the lost chao strain necessary for the continuation of Project Succession. If Query's promises were as prophetic as ever, the two animaloid heroes would accept the mission. 

Once Silver and Blaze were playing along her rules, getting the last two Chaos Emeralds from them should be easy. Jedo had been prudent as ever with reporting the pair's acquisition of both Conquest's purple Emerald and the white Emerald found to be powering the Nega Replicoids. The chameleon could do little to steal the Emeralds while the two carried them on their person, however. The physics of folding Emeralds within themselves were impervious to pickpocketing skills. 

The seven Chaos Emeralds and the purest strain of chao in existence. Soon all the pieces would be in place. The Amplifier Tower necessary to broadcast the energy of the seven Emeralds to every chao in the region and force their development towards becoming Fourth Stage chao was already constructed and ready for the grand unveiling. 

Soon...very soon... 

- 

_End of Chapter 17._


	20. More Than Evil

**Chapter 18: More Than Evil**

The only piece of furniture in the featureless concrete room in the deepest sub-basements of the Prower Tower was a sinister-looking steel chair covered in straps and diabolical instruments. Strapped in so tightly that circulation was nearly being cut off, there sat Lillian the Echidna. The needles stuck in her wrists continued pouring a clear fluid into her system, gradually poisoning her free will. Certainly there were more humane means of interrogation in the twenty-third century, but Lady Veronica preferred the relics of the last century for this purpose. 

The CEO of Prower Global Enterprises was alone in the room with the captive echidna. There was no need to worry about the prisoner pulling a fast one. Even if all the straps were cut, Lillian's body would still remain totally immobilised as her brain would remain incapable of sending any worthwhile signals to her limbs for another thirty minutes. The fiesty echidna had tried to spit at the Lady early on in the interrogation, but had managed nothing more than spilling a lot of drool all over herself. 

"The slimy raccoon was right," Veronica mused. She knelt down level with the destroyed scientist. "You nearly had me fooled." 

Lillian said nothing. Her blood-shot eyes weren't focusing on anything anymore. 

"You convinced your fellows to conspire against me, and then betrayed them both. You thought that exposing dear old Ramon and Ernst would earn you a position close enough to my inner circle to be able to upset the entire project. How cruel. To think that you would sacrifice two innocent people just for a chance to sabotage the greatest animaloid achievement of all time." 

Unlike her benefactor, Veronica was no psychopath. It was her outrage over the echidna's intentions that allowed her to feel no pity whatsoever during the hours spent torturing the woman for every shred of useful information. Veronica had to make certain whether the two remaining members of her most prized trio of elite scientists could be redeemed. She eventually received confirmation that Lillian had masterminded the rebellion herself, leaving the other two harmless without her influence. Nevertheless...Veronica made good on the threats of agony anyway, just to make sure the echidna wasn't just telling stories to save herself from pain. 

"_Bi...sjh..._" 

Veronica stood up straight. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you," she said. 

The two-tailed fox walked over to the only exit, and tapped lightly on the door. As if he'd been waiting and listening all along, an excessively large and muscular beaver, dressed in a skin-tight security uniform, promptly entered. 

"I'm afraid Ms. Lillian has been involved in a tragic industrial accident," said Veronica as she walked past the giant, out the door. "Standard procedure, Lars." 

"Yes, ma'am," Lars Brickford, head of company security, answered obediently. 

Standard procedure meant full media coverage, by reporters who all in one way or another found themselves on the pay roll of Prower Global Enterprises. Lady Veronica didn't believe in cover-ups. That old game always ended up attracting more attention than it dispelled. Why waste time and money concealing matters when you could simply change the matter itself from the inside out, then reveal it for all the world to see? 

In truth, Lady Veronica Prower would be easy to label an evil villain if one only saw her in her darkest places. But when looking at the whole picture it became more complicated. Veronica was a wonderful mother to her two children, as caring and loving as any parent could hope to be. She was a pillar of the community, responsible for many beneficial innovations throughout the last decade, and a dependable contributor to a number of worthwhile charities around the world. To put it simply, she wasn't a person you could look at with a plain black-and-white perspective. Yes, Lillian the Echidna would not have been tortured to the point of mental death and then murdered if not for the will of Veronica Prower. But, to take just a single example, dozens of terminally ill patients at the Central City hospital would've suffered fates easily as dire if the CEO of Prower Global Enterprises had not made a hefty donation to the hospital and enforced new price cut plans to safeguard the less financially-sound patients. The woman had committed a number of acts of unredeemable evil in her career, and yet statistically she had single-handedly made the world an overall better place to live. 

A complicated woman, or a terrifyingly simple and straightforward one? Difficult to say. Perhaps the explanation lay in the fact that to Lady Veronica the value of a human life was a mathematical issue. 

- 

This was the third time Jedo had broken into Silver's apartment. The cheap and ineffective lock in the front door was practically an old friend at this point. It certainly welcomed him inside with wide-open arms. 

Not after Chaos Emeralds this time, Jedo was instead responding to a very strange tip sent to him by old lady Prower herself. Apparently the Chaos Neutraliser pistol, the one he'd lost during the scramble to escape from Shadow and Prower's reckless guards, had found its way into Silver the Hedgehog's possession. The chameleon wasn't going to waste any brain power trying to figure out how that had happened, or how Prower had found out about it. He still couldn't understand how she'd managed to get to Jedo's 'insurance policy' so quickly. Eyes and ears everywhere - it was downright creepy. 

Jedo found the gun right away, lying carelessly on the table by the door. 

This was it. The old bag had promised that once he delivered the gun back he'd be off the hook completely. Apparently her cronies wouldn't have any trouble getting the last two Chaos Emeralds away from Silver and Blaze once the Chaos Neutraliser was back in their hands. 

Jedo could already taste his retirement. Almost as wonderful a promise as the riches was the prospect of having all memories of this unnerving experience erased from his mind. Sure Veronica could double-cross him, but Jedo believed by now that she was telling the truth. No matter how good she was, there was no way she could fool his instincts. Not even a machine could worm a lie past his senses - it was what kept him alive and ticking in this business. 

The chameleon had been invisible and virtually soundless when he broke in, but he needn't have bothered. As he knew, the two heroes were already at Prower Tower, responding to the invitation sent by the woman who employed the thief. Jedo knew enough about the lady's big plan to see that it was illegal as hell, but beyond that he couldn't care less. Wasn't his problem now, wouldn't be his problem once he was retired. 

- 

Ramon Ichorson passed the notebook across the table to Ernst von Casselton. The two of them were sitting in the meeting room that until recently they'd used to plan their contingency measures against Project Succession alongside Lillian the Echidna. Aloud the two talked about how foolish the girl had been and how ashamed they were of going along with her. The messages sent back and forth on paper told a very different story, however... 

Ramon's shaky writing read "How can we be sure Lillian's sacrifice worked?" 

Ernst's typewriter-like text responded "You saw the synthesis notes. She ingested the formula right before the guards took her. Once it reacts with the drugs Veronica uses in her torture sessions the delusion will take over. Lillian won't say a word other than what Veronica needs to hear." 

"It shouldn't have come to this. Why didn't you back me up before?" 

"Necessity, old friend. She drew the shortest straw." 

"She shouldn't even have been part of the draw. Girl was-IS only half our age, for goodness sake-" 

They burned the notebook before exiting the room. The recording of their voices, relayed through Veronica's bugs, would tell the woman only what the scientists needed her to believe. 

- 

_End of Chapter 18._


	21. Dangerous Chao

**Chapter 19: Dangerous Chao**

The meeting lasted over an hour. The gist of it went as follows: 

Silver and Blaze were in Prower Tower, receiving a very engaging tale from the head of Prower Global Enterprises. Lady Veronica Prower explained all about how chao all around the world were at the brink of complete extinction due to a rare and extremely dangerous virus that exclusively targeted the adorable gelatinous lifeforms. Her story was all the more believable for the complicated diagrams and authentic-looking stacks of research reports that she placed on the table before the pair, knowing full well that neither one would have the opportunity to actually read any of the material. The main point, as the Lady put forth, was that the only way to produce an effective cure for the impending viral outbreak was to locate the purest strain of chao in existence. 

Silver asked what was meant by 'pure' chao, and any observer would be happy he did, since that had never been properly explained aloud by this point. 

"It's about the affinity principle," said Veronica, in a teacher's voice. "As chao come into contact with other life-forms they draw affinity from the creature and adapt themselves to match certain defining traits. Although chao do not evolve, they do abandon some slight element of their natural selves every time they undergo an adaptive transformation. Don't worry, it would take millions of years of constant change for any chao to deplete its reserves of self. However, because chao constantly interact with their environment, it is almost impossible to find a 'pure' strain of chao that has never been drained of self." 

"But you've found this strain, haven't you?" Silver asked. 

"Indeed we have. There is a cave in northern china that leads to an underground natural chao garden. Unfortunately, the reason why these chao are kept free from interference is also the reason why we cannot reach them." 

"If you can't reach them, then how do you know they're there at all?" the ever suspicious Blaze inquired. 

"Good question," said Veronica nodding approvingly. "The truth is that my researchers have been allowed the privilege of taking advantage of PGE's satellite network during their search. Scanning the entire planet for one specific faint energy trace would have been an impossible task even twenty years ago, and even with the cutting edge technology employed by my company, the odds were very low. Nevertheless, we found them. The energy signal has been broken down again and again to make certain, until there was now doubt at all that this hidden chao garden contains what we need to save the entire chao species from extinction." 

"I see." 

"If I may continue... As I was saying, the reason we cannot reach these chao is because they are protected by a deadly force that has so far claimed the lives of every single person who has entered the cave that leads to the chao garden. For the sake of preventing more deaths, we put all our resources towards discovering what was responsible for the slaughter. The findings were disturbing, to say the least." Veronica looked hard at each of the super-powered animaloids in turn. "I trust you know about Dark Chao, chao that absorb negative personality traits and twist their form to match? Yes. Imagine chao that strayed into a domain of everlasting darkness, where thousands of innocent people were worked to death, and their tormented spirits remain trapped for eternity..." 

Lady Veronica Prower looked out of the corner of her eye for a second, then continued in a more normal tone of voice. 

"It sounds like a silly ghost story, but the archaeologists working the site surrounding the cave have found more than enough evidence to substantiate the theory. Before China was united, when constantly-warring factions fought for control of the region, a particularly nasty warlord whose name has been lost to history attempted to construct a monument, a grave, actually, that would stand strong until the end of time, keeping him safe from the clutches of death. You know the old story. Thousands of slaves died in the construction of the sanctuary, and as fate would have it the warlord himself was killed in battle, ending his dynasty, and putting a full stop to the grand work he ordered. Now, as civilised modern individuals, we know that supernatural occurrences do happen from time to time." 

Silver and Blaze nodded. Every couple of years some ancient evil or dark god emerged and wrought havoc before being destroyed by the many heroes of Earth. Even the two of them had fought and defeated one or two in their career. 

"Ghosts. Perhaps. Whatever phantasms haunt that old cave, what matters is that the chao that strayed from the innermost chao garden drew affinity from something evil and extremely dangerous. They are only Second Stage chao, yet their violent nature surpasses any Third Stage Devil Chao. The only benefit is that these 'Super-Dark Chao' have acquired a sensitivity to light that prevents them from being able to leave the darkness of the cave. They cannot reach daylight or the illumination offered by the chao garden that their ancestors came from. We cannot use toxins effective against chao to fight those monsters, in case we might accidentally endanger the pure strain that has to be recovered at all costs." 

"I get what you're saying," said Silver, who really did. "You want the two of us to go into that cave and get those pure strain chao for you." 

"Not quite," Veronica responded, showing that Silver didn't after all. "If either of you got too close to the chao garden, the chao would react to you and the point of the effort would be ruined. No, what we need the two of you to do is to clear a path through the cave so that PGE's scientists can collect the chao in proper containers. Miss. Blaze, as a pyrokinetic, you can generate light to harm and frighten the chao monsters, whereas you Mr. Silver can keep them at bay with your psychokinesis. The Super-Dark Chao are not cowardly creatures. The researchers who attempted to carry strong lights with them for protection were killed nonetheless. The blood-lust of the monsters is greater than the fear and pain they feel from anything that interrupts the complete darkness of their lair." 

Silver and Blaze looked at each other. 

"You will of course be greatly compensated for your efforts," Veronica added. 

There was a brief exchange of whispers, then Blaze nodded. "We'll take the job," she said. 

"Excellent! Oh, there is one tiny little problem," said Lady Veronica Prower. 

"What's that?" 

"You're both carrying Chaos Emeralds. Now, don't look at me like that. The security of this building is state-of-the-art. The scanners you went through on your way to my office were designed to detect anything out of the ordinary, and I'm sure you'll both agree that Chaos Emeralds are about as far from ordinary as anything could be." 

"Why are the Chaos Emeralds a problem?" Silver asked. 

"The god-like monster that destroyed Station Square two centuries ago was created from a reaction between the Chaos Emeralds and a chao, as I'm sure you both know. Would you take the risk of having a Super-Dark Chao draw power from a Chaos Emerald? There really is no telling what might happen." 

"She has a point," said Silver reluctantly. 

"I agree," said Blaze aloud, walking closer to her partner, then whispered in his ear "but leaving the Emeralds with her people would be a really bad idea." 

"When you are ready, you may use any of the company teleporters stored in this building to travel directly to the base camp from where you will be escorting my people into the cave," said Veronica. "Feel free to take whatever time you need to safely dispose of those Emeralds, but I would prefer if you departed today." 

The rest of the meeting was for sorting out the formalities. It was an official job, so there were papers to sign and things to sort out, as always. As soon as the two heroes has left, Veronica whipped out her cell phone and spoke a name, which activated the voice-operated speed dial function. 

"Lars, tag the two leaving my office and send word to Jedo that there's a gift horse coming his way. Once he delivers the last two Emeralds, kill him as messily as possible and leave the body in plain view. Evidence of his crimes will arrive in the hands of the police in time to recognise his death as a natural cause and effect within the criminal underworld. Sad state of affairs, really. Goodbye." 

Why the chameleon believed that story about being set free with erased memories was beyond her. It would be a waste of resources just to tie up so messy a loose end. 

- 

_End of Chapter 19._


	22. Afraid of the Light Part One

**Chapter 20: Afraid of the Light (Part One)**

They can see in total darkness as clearly as daylight.  
They move soundlessly right up until the point they strike.  
They hate light, and instinctively back away from it,  
but their hatred pulls them back in order to extinguish it.  
They're always hungry.  
They don't understand mercy.  
And there's no telling how many of them there are. 

Those were the thoughts that played through Silver's mind, over and over, as he and Blaze approached the ominous passage leading underground. The five Prower Global Enterprises scientists dressed in full rubber coverings and hauling equipment, followed close behind, but not so close that they weren't ready to turn and run at any moment. 

As promised, Silver and Blaze, had returned to use the PGE company teleporters right after delivering the purple and white Chaos Emeralds to a trustworthy keeper. As far as the pair knew, Conquest's Emerald was the only one that was never stolen by the mysterious thief. It still wound up in Deni's grubby hands, but that couldn't be helped. The plan was to hand the Emeralds directly over to Conquest, but as she was out on business, Silver and Blaze gave the Emeralds to Terkal, who promised to pass them on as soon as the Commander got back. Silver could easily guess what Conquest was doing. He could only hope that when she finally found Shadow, the Ultimate Life-Form would be in a mood to listen to reason. Maybe Silver should've stayed and helped out, but this impending chao extinction seemed just as important, and at least with this case they knew exactly where to go and what to do. 

The base camp leader had told of the tricks his men had used in order to try to get past the creatures. They'd tried carrying lamps at the end of long poles ahead of them, which worked for a bit, as the light blinded the monsters' night vision, but as soon as they'd violently attacked and smashed the lights, the ever-aggressive chao creatures refocused their attention completely on the people who'd been carrying the lights on a stick. No one survived that attempt, and even the hover-camera programmed to follow the team was badly scratched and rendered non-functional. It was a miracle the recording survived. 

Oh yeah, the recordings. Before the base camp leader would let the newcomers lead a fresh group of scientists into the cave, he insisted on having them watch all of the available recordings of the previous attempts to get through. The videos played like a slasher movie marathon, made all the more grotesquely terrifying for the fact that it was real. Maybe the guy feeding the videos into the projector was trying to prepare them for what the Super-Dark Chao were capable of, or maybe he was trying to convince them to give up their effort altogether. It was hard to tell. 

"Wait, these monsters are just chao, aren't they?" Blaze said to the nearest scientist, breaking the ominous silence. "Why don't you just dress up in heavy armour and beat them down with a bludgeon?" 

"We tried that," said the female owl scientist, identified as Susan by her nametag. "Poor Jack." 

"Who's poor Jack? I don't remember anyone dressed in proper body armour in the recordings," Blaze responded. 

"It wasn't an official expedition. Jack was a company bodyguard. He, uh, well, one of the crew members that died during the first attempts was his, uh, boyfriend." 

"Oh. So what happened?" 

"As far as we could piece together after the fact, he made a few unauthorised teleporter trips and came back dressed in full heavy state-of-the-art GUE extra-terrestrial combat armour. He then went inside...and... Well, to tell the truth, we don't know what happened. But a couple of days later the next expedition found his body not too far from the entrance. Naturally, they aborted, so that trip wasn't properly logged either." 

"How did he die?" 

"Heart failure," Susan answered, looking as intimidated as Silver felt. "His arms and legs were broken, and his body, it...he looked like he'd been bathing in leeches or...I don't know. Apart from bending his limbs until they broke, there's no way those monsters could've laid a finger on him, but still..." 

"I get the picture. Freedom of movement beats rigid useless armour," Blaze concluded. 

The party crossed the threshold of light. From here on there was nothing but total darkness. 

Blaze lit up a bright flame, illuminating the cave mouth. The brownish rock was a lot smoother than she would've expected. Faded indentations in the wall, carved by people rather than time, bore witness to the fact that this was a made place. Silver was sure he saw something move at the edge of the light, but maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him. 

"Silver, get that gravity shield of yours working, and stay close to me," said Blaze. "The creatures are likely to come flying out of nowhere, so let's make sure they get caught by your psychokinesis before any of them get within striking distance." 

Behind them, the five scientists got to work setting up ultraviolet light posts to extend the reach of daylight - the one border even the Super-Dark Chao were loathe to cross. Blaze wasn't sure it was worth the effort, as all the previous light posts must've been violently extinguished regardless. 

"It's alright, ma'am," said the youngest scientist, a human youth in his early twenties identified as Steve. "The chao don't usually stray this far from their lair. You'll know you're in the danger zone when you hear crackling as you walk." 

"Crackling?" said Silver, fighting a shiver down his spine. 

"Brittle bones," the guy answered with inappropriate calm. "The chao suck the marrow out of the bones and then leave them on the ground. They prefer to stay airborne, so the skeletons of their victims are left relatively untouched." 

"Okay. Great. You can stop helping now," said Silver irritably, imagining looming beasts in every shadow. 

Very slowly, Silver and Blaze lead the way, while their followers set up lights as a lifeline. Sure, the scientists were securing their escape, but when the Super-Dark Chao saw all those lights, they were going to be _pissed_. With his body lit with a psychokinetic aura, it was easy to tell from the white hedgehog's fur that he had goosebumps all over. Silver really wished they hadn't had to watch all those recordings. He'd braved far greater dangers than this in his career, but the sheer amount of ominous building and foreshadowing before this trip was just excessive. This was ridiculous! He hadn't been this scared when he faced Metal Mastermind one-on-one, or fought that gigantic lava monster controlled by Dr. Pretorious. Why did they leave the Chaos Emeralds behind? With his powers enhanced by two Chaos Emeralds, he could've really kicked some Super-Dark Chao butt. Oh, but the risk wasn't worth taking, was it? 

Silver sighed aloud. Blaze shushed him. 

And then the monster leapt into Silver's face. It was instantly captured by the psychokinetic gravity shield, but still, one minute Silver was looking into the dark, and the next the darkness had a face with glowing white evil eyes and razor-sharp snapping teeth. 

"**Chaaaaooooo!!**" the monster roared. 

Contrary to what one might expect, Dark Chao were in high demand as pets around the world. A chao bred with just the right adorably mischievous qualities and that wicked shark-like grin fetched a very high price, provided it still had the loyalty and obedience that people came to expect of a well-raised chao. The gelatinous midget making fruitless attempts at tearing Silver's face off might look cute in the right light, with its stubby bat wings and spiky-yet-fluffy bobble bouncing above its head, but this thing wouldn't stop with just biting the _hand_ that fed it. 

The chao gaped wider, and out emerged a tongue like that of a serpent, which whipped across Silver's face, leaving a tiny red cut across his forehead. 

"Ow! Why, you little-" 

Silver threw the chao into the rock wall hard. It bounced off the hard surface and fell to the ground, where it lay still. 

"How many of those do you-" Silver began, but before he got to the end of the question, his face locked into a grimace. He'd made the mistake of lowering his shield after throwing the chao away. The instant he turned away from the apparently unconscious beast, it sprang back to life and threw itself at him, sinking its horrible teeth into his right leg. 

Before Silver had time to react, the Super-Dark Chao had taken a bite out of him. A real bite. With shock and pain numbing his senses, Silver would've been unable to prevent the monster from getting a second mouth-full if Blaze hadn't struck back with a powerful fireball, frying the chao into the ground. 

The last thing Silver saw before passing out was Blaze wrapping her body in flames, and shouting something to the cowering scientists. 

- 

The hovering autonomous camera that followed each expedition recorded the sight of a burning feline throwing herself into the fray, taking on dozens of ravenous chao, briefly illuminated by the light of her flames. The secret relay link implanted inside the camera sent the live feed via a satellite link to a specific monitor located in the CEO's office in Prower Tower. Due to the distance, everything the watchers saw was delayed by about a minute. This old-fashioned spy equipment actually worked better than the modern variant. It escaped detection more efficiently as well. 

"This isn't going very well, is it?" Veronica commented to her guest. 

"Patience," said Mr. Query. "Really good stories require proper suspense. Will Blaze beat the monsters on her own? Will Silver save her, thus risking bleeding to death in the process? Will they both get killed in spite of their efforts? Isn't it more exciting when you just don't know?" 

"I don't care for surprises." 

"Your loss, I assure you." 

- 

_To Be Continued._


	23. Afraid of the Light Part Two

**Chapter 21: Afraid of the Light (Last Part)**

All the pain, fear, anger and remorse of the thousands of people worked to death in the construction of the warlord's tomb. It all stayed behind, congesting, congealing, solidifying. The timeless haven that lay beyond the cave of death remained unchanged, but when a few chao decided to explore the world beyond their private paradise, the pent-up emotions trapped within the unfinished tomb found an outlet. The first Super-Dark Chao was born. Across the centuries, the monsters multiplied. Just as chao raised with sublime love and care could be reborn indefinitely, chao swimming in hatred from birth would be constantly brought back by the sheer lust for vengeance that fuelled them. 

The spirits of the dead, embodied within the chao, wanted revenge. Given enough time to seethe in hatred, revenge doesn't require the specific orchestrator of the original crime in order to be carried out. The hate and malice of the Super-Dark Chao swarming at Blaze the Cat was strong enough to overcome the pain and terror caused by the light of her flames. She fought fiercely, but if nothing intervened she was certainly going to die. 

"**Chao!!**" 

Blaze leaned back in time to avoid the chomp, but the chao trying to bury its teeth in her still managed to catch the sleeve of her dress. With a grip like a crocodile, the beast sent flying by the cat's responding blow tore up the cloth, exposing Blaze's naked left arm. The purple fur was criss-crossed by stripes of unnatural white fur, evidence of the childhood of a pyrokinetic animaloid. Complete control over fire came later in life. No pyrokinetic child ever grew up without..."episodes". 

Susan and Steve, the two named members of the Interchangeable Five, obeyed Blaze's previously screamed order and ran into the dark to grab the unconscious Silver and carry him to safety. Unfortunately, that noble act would cost both their lives. It was their name tags, ironically enough, that condemned them. They were wise enough not to carry anything bright when they entered the Super-Dark Chao's turf, but the light of the fighting feline's flames reflected off their shiny name tags made them targets, nonetheless. The hungry creatures that'd broken away from the brawl to feast on the still hedgehog got their attention drawn instead towards a pair of fresh targets. 

It was the screams of being eaten alive that stirred Silver. He managed to open his eyes, though they weighed a ton each, and saw an orange-lit cat with white stripes on her arms. 

"Pia...?" Silver said groggily. The haze cleared slightly, as the false revelation applied jumper cables to his mind. "Blaze!" the hedgehog yelled, jumping to his feet, then falling over on his side as reality cut in. 

He was bleeding out of control. He'd never make it, but whatever happened to him, he HAD to save Blaze. As uncertain and prone to second-guesses that Silver was, when everything became truly dire and there was no time to think twice, he always knew what to do. Silver rolled over on his back and stretched out his arm in the direction of the entrance. He saw two of the scientists cowering within the field of the ultraviolet lanterns while a third was already making a desperate dash for the exit. Putting everything he had to the task, Silver grabbed the objects that lay at the very edge of his natural psychokinetic range. Then, in one quick movement, he rolled back again and thrust every single one of the lanterns towards where Blaze was slowly losing the struggle. Then, Silver did something new. 

Suddenly the interior of the tomb was as bright as a cloud-free Summer day. The Super-Dark Chao, revealed as a multitude of colours, caught the light within their semi-transparent gelatinous bodies and reacted as if they were sprayed with sulphuric acid. All as one, the screaming, crying monsters rushed towards small holes revealed in the cave walls, mercilessly beating each other to get out of the way fastest. 

Squinting, as it was the only way she could make anything out in the sudden explosion of light, Blaze looked up to see a collection of lanterns held together in the ceiling, with their radiance amplified by a gentle teal glow. Then, abruptly, all of the lanterns fell to the ground. Blaze dived forward, and managed to save two of them. Though the lights dimmed, the Super-Dark Chao didn't seem brave enough to return yet. 

After dropping a lantern near each of the swiss cheese walls, Blaze ran forward across a rock floor that she could now see clearly was littered with the skeletal remains of the explorers and careless curious folk who'd wandered into this death trap over the years. Silver had passed out again, as she guessed when he dropped the lights. The horrible gaping wound in his leg had already spilled out too much blood. Blaze tore the other sleeve off her dress and tied up the wound as tight as she could. She knew enough about first aid to know that it was a reckless reaction, but nothing in the time period when the rules of first aid were invented could save her partner now. She had to get him to a modern hospital RIGHT NOW! No, there wouldn't be enough time, unless- Of course, that was how she'd survived when... She had to do it. 

Blaze pulled the cloth back and put her flame-lit hand in place. Silver's eyes suddenly sprang wide open and he released a deafening scream of agony, which echoed on for along time. 

Looking away from the fused wound, Blaze saw the last two scientists still standing where they'd been. "What the hell are you two waiting for!?" she shouted. "Get the damn chao! This is the only chance you're going to get!!" 

While the PGE employees ran forward with the gear to collect the pure strain chao, Blaze, given super strength by adrenaline, lifted Silver and ran at speed to the exit. In her present state, even Sonic the Hedgehog would've raised an eye brow at the speed and reaction Blaze utilised in getting Silver out of the cave, across the rough terrain, back to the base camp, and into the teleporter. The guard on post was given the fair choice between entering the prefix code for the nearest hospital or having his loins torched off where he stood - he chose wisely. 

- 

The recorder lost track of Blaze once she rushed out of the cave. What Lady Veronica Prower and Mr. Query did see, however, was the two scientists making their own dash for freedom with a specialised glass container between them that contained what was unmistakably a natural blue chao. 

"Finally," said Veronica. 

"Congratulations, Miss Prower," said Mr. Query, tipping his hat. "All you need now are the last two Chaos Emeralds." 

Before Veronica could respond, the phone rang. She raised her eye brow at the raccoon. 

"No, I didn't know that would happen," he said. "An authentic coincidence. How rare!" 

Making a face, Veronica answered the phone. 

"Lars, I was just thinking of you," she said. "You have them? Perfect. Have them brought to me at once. Hmmm? What kind of complications? Well, find him and kill him. I don't care how. No, bring me the Emeralds first. Your men can search for the chameleon in the meantime." 

Mr. Query looked thoughtful. When Veronica turned around again he was gone. 

- 

Three hours later... 

In Beijing's best hospital, if one were to pass through the recovery ward and peek into a certain room, one might see a white hedgehog sleeping off a recent blood transfer and limb regrowth procedure. Sitting beside him, holding his hand, a purple cat in torn clothing, looking like she'd come fresh from a war zone. 

Mr. Query's interference had changed the time and circumstances, but some destined events were too strong to be undone so easily. Nothing short of destroying the world would do the trick. 

Somewhere in time, Dr. Pretorious's temporal twin thought about the means to accomplish exactly that. 

- 

_End of Chapter 21._


	24. Turning Point

**Chapter 22: Turning Point**

I've seen the world. It has become a utopia. Everything Professor Gerald could have wished for and more. Eggman Nega's lies unravelled with each new sigh I beheld. Peace and harmony reign now. And yet all I feel is hatred. There is no justice here. To corrupt government that murdered Maria has paved the way for a perfect world of their own, escaping justice forever. Should I leave their descendants in blissful ignorance of the innocent lives their society was founded upon? 

Standing on the edge of a skyscraper, watching the city ablaze with the scarlet light of the setting sun, Shadow the Hedgehog pondered his nature. 

"The Ultimate Life-Form created to bring justice to the humans. Hmph! Looks like they've made me redundant." 

Shadow stayed still for a while, as the last remnants of daylight faded away. His breathing grew heavier by the minute. He seemed to be sneering, as if trying and failing to voice the resentment and rage he felt. It wasn't just Eggman's lies. Shadow's memory had returned, and with it came a re-evaluation of his life. He didn't like what he'd seen in the secret depths of his mind. 

"I don't believe it!" he suddenly shouted the indifferent sky. "All this power. The Professor can't have created me just for the sake of getting closer to a cure for Maria. Look at this pathetic city! If I chose to destroy it, then who would be able to stop me!? Huh? Was I an accident? A bi-product of a benevolent experiment?" 

He'd felt his memories return, but each event within felt alien to him. Moments that had meant so much to the person experiencing them for the first time were as foreign pantomime to this Shadow the Hedgehog. He couldn't understand why the Shadow in those memories had stood by and let so much pain happen to him. When the memory of the sheer tedium felt during his self-imposed exile onboard the Ark returned, Shadow felt claustrophobic. It was that claustrophobia that had driven him up to the very peak of this sky scraper. But even here, he couldn't escape the crushing weight of his past. 

He couldn't understand why empty words from a pink hedgehog girl had made him break away from his decided fate. Was it insanity that made the Professor reprogram him into a weapon of destruction, or was it his destiny from the start? His thoughts kept returning to the struggle that his foreign self had gone through his entire existence, constantly fighting his own powers to prevent himself from going out of control or hurting others. And yet, back then, during the brief time when he allowed himself to be deceived by Black Doom's promises, when he let his full powers fly against the GUN army, that had been the only time when he felt truly free. 

Freedom. Wasn't that what you were always going on and about, Sonic? I think I understand now. 

"I can't go back," he said aloud. 

A dark notion arose. All he had to do was stop questioning. Just do what felt right. Stop holding back, even if it would mean destroying everything... 

Yes...with Conquest he'd felt true happiness for the first time since Maria died. But that wasn't enough. What he wanted, what he craved was the passion of the fight. Why had he resisted it so long? It didn't make any sense. If he'd just stopped holding back he could've destroyed the Super Metal Sonics on his own. Had he been so afraid of setting all his power free that he'd sacrificed his best chance to save the world from the Metal Mastermind without having to rely on those reckless kids? 

Just stop fighting. Yes... 

In the gloom of night, Shadow the Hedgehog changed. It was subtle. The only unmistakable sign afterwards was... 

"Heh, heh. Ahehehehe...! HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!" 

The Ultimate Life-Form stepped over the edge. As semi-transparent red flames danced across his body, Shadow wondered why he'd let himself think that he needed Chaos Emeralds to fly. 

- 

Far below, in the darkened alleyways, an invisible chameleon ran along the brick walls, with only one goal in mind: Revenge. The blurry shape in the air had one tell-tale sign. Jedo was bleeding slightly from the crack in his head. If horned animaloid chameleons didn't have such thick skulls, he would've been a goner. 

He'd pulled off the heist of a century. Stealing the two Chaos Emeralds from Terkal the Echidna's desk within the top floor of the GUE HQ fortress would've been impossible for any thief but him. And what did he get for his efforts? A beating from the old lady's goons that was undoubtedly meant to be lethal. The thugs were probably still looking for him, hoping to finish the job. 

Well, it was time to turn the tables. Jedo knew that he'd never find anywhere in the world where he could hide from the woman publicly known to be richer than God, so if he was doomed, then he was going to make her suffer before he kicked the bucket. The Chaos Emeralds. The old bag had all seven of them now, and everyone knew that possessing all seven at once made you totally invincible. She was going to use the gems in some stupid illegal experiment, so that left them wasting their real purpose. Oh yeah. Jedo could see it now. Super Form master thief, able to pay her back in spades, that double-crossing bitch! 

- 

Lady Veronica Prower rode the elevator to the top floor of Prower Tower. She was alone, not counting Lars Brickford, the oversized head of security, who often doubled as the CEO's bodyguard. In each hand, she held a Chaos Emerald. Even someone like her, used to unbelievable riches, couldn't help being absorbed by the fantastic radiance of the unique gems. 

The Chaos Emerald Energy Amplification Device (No one ever came up with a shorter name, which was a pity) stood fully finished on the roof of the Prower Tower. For such an incredible machine, it was oddly lacking in size and design. It was just a metal box about twice the height of an adult human, with a bizarre antenna attached to it. But then again, Veronica really wasn't interested in drawing attention to her magic box, so as far as she was concerned, the design was perfect. Granted, it looked a lot larger and more imposing in her dreams, but no matter. 

Although the outside of the box was square, the inside was circular, which was certainly impressive. The green, blue, yellow, azure, and red Chaos Emeralds were fitted into slots around the single chair inside. 

The only people present for the event were Ramon Ichorson, Ernst von Casselton, and an unnamed non-descript third scientist whose only apparent role was to hold the capsule containing the rather distressed-looking pure chao. The fact that the chao in question was slowly melting into goo was probably the reason for its distress. Veronica might control or destroy the world by day break, but right now she had only gone as far as excessive chao cruelty. 

"Damn thing looks like a futuristic outhouse," Ernst muttered under his breath, low enough not to be heard by the boss lady. 

Veronica ceremoniously inserted the last two Chaos Emeralds into the empty slots, then stepped back. 

"How long until we're ready to fire?" she asked her brain crew. 

"S-shouldn't be more than half a-an hour or so," Ramon replied, quaking as he often did, though more understandably given the circumstances. 

"That long?" said Veronica a little suspiciously. 

"Naturally," Ernst responded. "If one were to channel power from all seven Chaos Emeralds in one go without proper preparations, then any machinery would overpower and likely explode. Only living things can naturally draw the full energies of the assembled Emeralds without causing a disastrous backfire. 

"Hmmm..." 

Veronica was eager to get it all over with before Mr. Query turned up. Once the Fifth Stage was hers, that slimy raccoon would be easy to get rid of once and for all. 

- 

Shadow felt a tingle, as if all the Chaos Emeralds were gathered in one spot, singing their siren song of ultimate power. He saw no reason to resist their call... 

Jedo felt a chill down his spine, as he crawled across the ceiling of the entrance hall of Prower Tower. The highest security in the world. Not for long. The old bag was going to learn what he was really made of once he had those Emeralds... 

Dr. Eggman Nega awoke with a start as a siren went off. He'd been dozing in his chair before the main control panels, taking a rest after the lengthy chore of getting the undersea fortress mobile and relocating to a safer position. Nega's same-named ancestor invented the Emerald tracker. Nega's own variant was more sophisticated, but still not powerful enough to scan the entire planet. Still, a reaction of all seven Chaos Emeralds created a trace signal so powerful he could've picked it up anywhere on the planet, yet it was right THERE in Central City! This time, they would be his... 

Mr. Query arrived in the CEO's office, which of course was empty. He checked his specialised wrist watch, cursed aloud, and hurried towards the elevator... 

General Deni was still locked up in a cell. He was asleep. Dreaming of sugar-glazed ham... 

In Beijing, Silver the Hedgehog opened his eyes... 

- 

The end was not far off now. 

- 

_End of Chapter 22._


	25. Chao Cataclysm Part One

**Chapter 23: Chao Cataclysm (Part One)**

Silver watched Blaze's face rise away from his. His lips felt weird. 

"Did...did you just kiss me?" he asked. 

"Yes." 

"On the mouth?" 

"Yes!" 

"Wow!" 

And then the hedgehog salvaged what shred of romance was left in the situation by reaching out and returning the favour. 

Now that Silver was experiencing the most magical and warming moment of his life, things could only get worse. Far abroad, and totally unknown to these two heroes, the chain of disaster was already in motion... 

Oh, and Blaze was enjoying the situation too. She might seem awfully cold and reserved, but the truth was - and this was a truth she'd normally deny to the point of beating you into a bloody pulp - that she'd always had a bit of a crush on her partner in arms. In love, few things make any sense at all. 

- 

Lady Veronica Prower was growing impatient. The loud humming coming from the Chaos Emerald Energy Amplification Device suggested that it was powering up as it should, but it was taking too long. 

Up here on the roof of the tallest building in Central City, the air was frigid. While the CEO and her brainy minions waited, the wind gradually picked up, turning into a carving frost. Overhead the clouds closed over the last space of star-lit sky. 

"Should only be another ten minutes or so," said Ernst the German scientist, shivering but retaining control of his eloquent voice. "Is your test subject ready, Miss Prower?" 

"Of course. LARS!" Veronica yelled towards the darkened rooftop entrance. 

The muscular and well-armed beaver stepped forth. Ernst realised that although Veronica had seemed unprotected at the moment, if they'd deviated from the plan and tried to attack her on the spot, the giant of a security guard would've turned both the scientists into mince-meat. 

"H-he's your t-test subject?" Ramon the timid rabbit stuttered. 

"Of course," Veronica responded, smiling wickedly. "The Stage Five must have loyalty to me above all else. You love me, don't you, Lars?" 

"Always, ma'am," the giant beaver answered automatically. 

For the first time, Ernst made the connection between Veronica's overzealous security force and the "other" illegal experiments she'd been conducting over the years. He came to realise that in the eight years Lars had worked here, he'd never changed. Always the same towering force. He'd been head of security from the start - never taking the long road through a lower post, but emerging at the top from his first appearance. Oh dear, he thought to himself, how many illegal boosts did you give your clones, Veronica? 

- 

Jedo the Chameleon waited in the broom closet until the security guards stepped away from the direction he needed to go. His head really ached. If he hadn't been wearing a fake horn, then that damn giant probably would've knocked him dead with one hammer blow. What the hell was the old lady feeding her guards? Fried eggs and steroids? 

He'd made it this far by avoiding the obvious opportunities, like the air ducts and ventilation shafts - all rigged, as he knew, with industrial-strength carving lasers. The public hallways was the only way to go. His chameleon invisibility wasn't flawless, but he had a lifetime's experience of exploiting his surroundings to become truly invisible to every sense. If an alert guard looked directly at his invisible form, then he might make out the unnatural curves in the air and blow the chameleon's cover, but Jedo had the experience and the skill to never let that happen. 

Now! Jedo pushed the door open in one rapid movement, then held it hard, preventing it from squeaking again. He then placed his hands and legs on the corridor wall and ascended to the ceiling. From there, he ran. He wouldn't deny it: Being able to move on all surfaces was a convenient ability for a master thief. 

A couple of minutes later, a Prower Global Enterprises employee, heading home after working late, inserted his company security card into the slot by the elevator. He was surprised to be alerted to hold the door by someone. Jedo was even more surprised, but still took the opportunity to slip through the crack and hang tight on the ceiling of the elevator. 

"Thank you so much for holding," said Mr. Query gratefully. "Would you believe I forgot my card down in the lobby?" 

"Er..." said the employee, a non-descript guy in a suit. 

"Neither would I," Mr. Query went on pleasantly. "It's a sorry excuse. How would I get up to the high-security floors if I forgot my security card? Can I borrow yours? Oh, but you won't need it. You'll be far more occupied with that gaping hole in your chest. Why, this one, of course." 

Jedo didn't recognise the weapon that the raccoon in the old-fashioned coat and fedora used, but he appreciated its effects, and wished he'd chosen a different elevator. Some kind of ball of crackling air shot right through that poor guy's chest, leaving a hole you could see clear through. The murderer then reached down and retrieved the security card with two fingers, trying not to get blood on his gloves. He didn't bother to kick the dead body out of the little square space, but punched the button for the roof access, and got comfortable where he stood. 

"Was that heartless? Unnecessary cruelty?" the raccoon said aloud, causing much worry with Jedo, who wondered if the guy was aware of his presence. "Hardly. When you're engaged in work that will likely cause the untimely deaths of billions, you'd be silly to to hold back for the cause of one single human life." 

Nope. No notice. Apparently the raccoon just really liked hearing the sound of his own voice. Huh. He didn't have a tail. Strangely appropriate, since the woman Jedo was looking to kill had an extra to spare. 

- 

"Five minutes to go," said Ernst, checking his wrist watch. 

Veronica nodded to Lars. Apparently that was all the instruction he needed, as the beaver immediately walked over to the magic box and sat down in the single seat inside. As rehearsed, the unnamed third scientist handed the canister containing the now-completely liquefied chao to the seated beaver. 

"W-will he r-really be able to drink it a-all?" Ramon asked. 

"Of course," said Veronica. "Dear Lars doesn't have a gag reflex." 

Figures, thought Ernst to himself. 

In spite of his apparent cowardice, Ramon was keeping up extremely well under the circumstances. He knew, as Ernst did, that in five minutes they would all be dead - no matter how this turned out. The microscopic fragment of the Master Emerald that made the Chaos Neutraliser pistol function wasn't the only piece in the possession of Prower Global Enterprises. Stealing the samples of the Master Emerald from the shrine on Angel Island had been child's play compared to the years-long task of calculating exactly how much could be safely removed from the massive gemstone without causing another natural disaster. The bomb that Ernst, Ramon and Lillian (may she rest in peace) had worked so hard to install into the Chaos Emerald Energy Amplification Device contained the rest of the fragments. When it went off at the same time as the seven Chaos Emeralds discharged their power...well, it was impossible to be certain what would happen. All that mattered was that Project Succession died right here and now without ever realising its disastrous potential. 

A nearby "Ding!" noise made everyone turn their heads. A sight familiar to some and disturbing to one came forth. 

"So sorry I'm late," said Mr. Query. "Traffic. You know how it is." 

Veronica didn't seem too bothered by the fact that the raccoon had to step over a dead body to exit the elevator, so Ernst and Ramon didn't comment. The third scientist, aware that he was just an extra with no lines or even character description, kept quiet. Veronica herself was more painfully aware that her best muscle was going to stay completely unavailable until the Fifth Stage chao was born, leaving her completely vulnerable for the time being. 

"Three minutes to go," Veronica said simply. 

"Aheeheeheehee!" Mr. Query laughed that annoying laugh of his. "Isn't time a funny thing? Three hours ago I was reborn, and yet three minutes seems like forever. Oh, it's been such a busy-busy day." 

"What is it you really want, mister time traveller?" Veronica asked, crossing her arms and staring hard at her benefactor. 

"Oh, you figured it out. I'm so proud. Three wonderful hours of travelling back and forth. Watching failures and accomplishments. I've watched you all die, you know. I've seen you die, and you, and you, Jedo." When he said the chameleon's name, Mr. Query suddenly turned around and looked at a patch of empty air between himself and the elevator. "I wouldn't bother trying to shoot me or Miss Prower with my gun. It's coded to my touch, only. Splendid job stealing it out of my pocket, though. I didn't feel a thing!" 

Jedo the Chameleon dropped his invisibility. Admittedly he was standing slightly to the left of where Mr. Query was looking, but close enough. 

"So you've gone ahead and seen how this turns out, have you?" Veronica asked Mr. Query, ignoring Jedo deliberately, which fuelled the chameleon's rage further. 

"No, actually. Not this time. This time I'm going to watch everything happen from the vantage point of history's end. My glasses are more than meets the eye, so to speak. Aheehee! I could see the chameleon without any trouble. He's not really supposed to be here, of course, so would you like me to kill him for you?" 

"I'd like to see you try!" Jedo yelled, throwing Query's gun away and brandishing a nasty-looking firearm of his own. 

"If you insist," said Mr. Query, standing perfectly still. 

Someone grabbed the stump of Jedo's horn from behind, twisting it painfully, while kicking the gun out of his grasp. Mr. Query tipped his hat to the Mr. Query holding Jedo. "We're stronger than we look, wouldn't you say?" the two said in chorus to the audience. 

Despite his struggles, the two raccoons managed to grab the arms and legs of the animaloid half their height, then swung him back and forth like a hammock, before tossing the chameleon over the edge of the roof. Both Mr. Querys leaned forward and put their hands to their ear theatrically as they listened to the descending scream. 

Once it was over, the first Mr. Query tapped some buttons on his peculiar wrist watch and disappeared. The remaining Mr. Query picked up his void pellet pistol, took a bow, and said "I love that trick." 

Veronica, Ernst, Ramon and the seated Lars had all been watching the fight entranced. Ernst got his attention back to the matter at hand, glanced at his watch, and shouted "Thirty seconds!" 

So that was the raccoon responsible for orchestrating this whole mess, Ernst thought. He'll die along with the rest of us. 

"No time to waste, then!" Mr. Query exclaimed, then shot the giant beaver where he sat, right through the head. Before anyone could react, he turned his weapon on Veronica and said "Go take his place, or I'll kill you right here and now. Whoop, hurry and catch the canister before your dead brute drops it!" 

Out of concern for her project, Veronica made sure to save the pure chao. She rather more reluctantly pulled Lars out of the magic box and sat down inside, while Ernst counted down the seconds out loud. 

"You won't get away with this," Veronica said. 

"Don't be silly. Of course I will," Mr. Query rebutted as Ernst reached the numbers three, two one... 

- 

"CHAOS CONTROL!" 

Shadow instinctively froze time as soon as he felt the violent burst of Chaos Emerald energy, as if the stones themselves were crying out in pain. In the odd-coloured world of zero time, he saw a peculiar scene playing out on the rooftop of the tallest building in Central City. 

There was a big metal box with a strange antenna on top. Inside of it, the Chaos Emeralds... In Shadow's present state of mind, all the people outside the box were as insignificant as dust compared to the importance of the Emeralds. Something was going wrong inside there. A disturbance of some sort was trying to interfere with the very energies of the Emeralds, forcing them into submission. Shadow wouldn't allow that. He let his senses reach inside the technological device and locate the foreign object causing the anguish. The Ultimate Life-Form forced his powers to take control. Although the foreign object offered resistance, Shadow couldn't be stopped now that he'd abandoned all his restraints. In one rapid burst of energy, the Chaos Neutraliser bomb was vaporized. 

With the obstacle removed, Shadow reached for the Chaos Emeralds, not caring about the woman seated between them or the strange thing sitting on her lap... 

- 

Real time flowed back into the world as Shadow was thrown across the roof, hitting the surface hard and rolling as far as the outer railings. Mr. Query and the scientists, to whom it had appeared as if the black hedgehog burst into existence out of nowhere, all turned to look at him, but quickly found their attention drawn back to the magic box, where strange and powerful things were happening. 

The metal door to the Chaos Emerald Energy Amplification Device slammed shut, sealing off Veronica, the pure chao substance and the seven Chaos Emeralds. The antenna above the box was now brightly lit, spreading a pale blue light across the cloud-covered sky above. Everyone heard a scream from inside the box, which was quickly cut off as if something had suddenly covered the mouth of the screamer. Blazing lights could be seen around the edges of the tightly sealed door. 

"We've failed," said Ramon in a clear voice, too numb with shock to even stutter. 

"The cataclysm begins now," said Ernst gravely. 

Shadow got back on his feet. "This power..." he said with hunger in his voice, "I want it!" 

The Ultimate Life-Form stormed towards the magic box again, only to be tossed back a second time, this time as blinding light exploded forth from the antenna, so bright it burned even through closed eyelids. 

Then there was silence. Shadow and everyone else slowly opened their eyes and looked towards the box. The door had been torn off, and the thing that emerged was no animaloid. 

The Chaos Matron looked at each of the assembled watchers in turn, then it looked down at itself, examining its hands. Finally, it...she said only two words: "I am." 

- 

_To be continued._


	26. Chao Cataclysm Part Two

**Chapter 24: Chao Cataclysm (Part Two)**

Silver and Blaze didn't notice the flash speeding across the planet at the speed of light. Their eyes were half-closed, they were facing away from the window, and they weren't really paying attention to the surroundings anyway. 

(Don't go assuming it went any further than kissing at the moment, though. Sure, animaloids matured considerably faster than humans, but this isn't that kind of story. Nothing further than kissing, got it?) 

Whether chao could be considered pets or not varied between different cultures. In most of Asia it would be a terrible insult to both the chao and its human or animaloid family to refer to it as a "pet". In most of America, the opposite was true. Regardless of proper term, the family of a little girl lying in the hospital room opposite Silver's had brought their chao along for the visit. 

Silver and Blaze were distracted enough not to notice the commotion until visitors and hospital staff were running screaming through the hallway. The two of them looked out through the doorway, across the hall, and through the next doorway, to see an impossible sight. 

"Oh crap, this is just a dream, isn't it?" Silver said out loud. 

Blaze interrupted what she was going to say so she could grimace at Silver and pinch his ear hard. 

"Ow! Ow! Okay, it's real! What the heck is that?" 

The only ones who hadn't run away at the sight of it was chao's family. The little girl was attached to medical doodads around her bed, and couldn't go anywhere, and her loving family weren't about to leave her just because their chao friend had suddenly metamorphosed into a giant humanoid shape. 

Just about everyone in the world would recognise Chaos Zero. Not just because of the importance of that part of history, but also due to the seemingly infinite series of movies and remakes made about the adventures of the most famous hedgehog of all time. Every time the movie-makers invented some amazing new 3D technology, they just had to release another remake of the Sonic Adventure movie to show how amazingly realistic they could make the Chaos monster THIS time. 

The thing the chao had become was Chaos Zero. The shape was identical, the behaviour was not. It just stood there. The panic that its sudden appearance had caused was due to nothing but terror on the part of the fleeing people. In fact, Silver and Blaze could just about tell that the newborn Chaos was just as confused as everyone watching. 

The little girl was the first to speak. Neither of the heroes understood Chinese, but they would guess that the girl was saying the chao's name, as the Chaos turned towards the bedridden girl and nodded slowly. 

"Are we supposed to fight it?" Silver asked, getting out of bed. 

"I...don't think so," Blaze responded quietly, not taking her eyes off the Fourth Stage chao. "It's not really doing anything bad. Anyway, if that's a real...Chaos, then I'm not sure how we could beat it." 

"Oh yeah. Sonic never did manage to destroy Chaos, did he?" 

"We need to find out if this is an isolated incident. If less calm chao are also evolving on the spot, then we could be facing some serious trouble soon. Wait, turn on the TV!" 

TVs in hospital rooms was common back in the twenty-first century. Today, it'd be impossible to get a room without one. The mass-media had conquered the entire planet Earth about three times over since the turn of the millennia. 

While Silver struggled with the remote control that had all Chinese numbers, Blaze continued watching the Chaos. It had sat down on the floor, and was examining itself, moving slowly as if it was afraid of accidentally harming anyone. We could probably reduce it to a puddle of goo if we had to, Blaze reckoned, but how could we stop it from reforming? If even Sonic the Hedgehog couldn't properly defeat one such creature, what do we do if there's two of them? 

"Uh...Blaze. You'd better watch this." 

Silver had finally got the TV working, and turned to a new channel. It didn't matter that they couldn't understand what the announcer was saying. The images shown were enough. Amateur videos showing chao gardens, family homes, even out on the streets, everywhere! It wasn't an isolated incident, chao all over the world were changing into Chaos-like creatures. And as they feared, many of them were violent. Frustrated chao often attacked their handlers, beating at them with their stubby little gel hands - now that these chao had strength and resilience far surpassing any human and most animaloids, their hostility was destructive indeed. 

"It's happening all over the world," Blaze stated. "Put your boots on, Silver. We've got our work cut out for us." 

"Have you got a plan, Blaze?" 

"What, no jumping into combat without thinking this time?" Blaze asked smiling slightly. 

"Not this time. I mean, look at them. They're not evil, they're just confused and frustrated. That one sitting across the hall is as gentle as a lamb." 

"Good thinking. So what do you think we should do, Silver?" 

"Find the source of these transformations and do our stuff," said Silver simply. 

"Any ideas how we do that?" 

"Well...I don't know, but it seems like a bit too much of a coincidence that this mess would start right after Lady Prower sends us to get that special chao out of the haunted cave. Maybe this is the effect of that virus she was telling us about. She might know how to put a stop to this." 

"I wonder..." 

- 

Veronica was a dream... 

The Fourth Stage chao had been a hunched figure, but the Fifth Stage stood tall, regally. The Chaos Matron's body was composed of the same blue gel as its lesser kin, but her body was more defined, more animaloid in form. That was Veronica's face carved in the blue substance, unmistakable. It was her body, reshaped into an idealism of form. As the Chaos Matron looked at her three-fingered hands, they changed into a respectable five-fingered pair. The single tail of the Chaos Matron became two. Some traits of the Fifth Stage were closer to the original chao form than the Fourth Stage had been. Like the natural chao, the Chaos Matron had magnificent angelic wings of fluorescent pink gel. Above her head, a sphere of golden light. 

For the moment, the Chaos Matron was as a newborn child, unaware of her identity or her god-like power. The images in her mind didn't seem familiar yet. Feelings warmed her body that were both completely new and pleasantly natural to her. 

She looked at strange creatures watching her in awe and terror. 

"What are you?" she asked them. 

The strangely familiar raccoon walked past the others and knelt before her. "We are your servants, of course," he said. 

"Do I need servants?" the Chaos Matron asked. 

"All rulers do." 

"You insane witch, d-do you have any idea wha-what you've d-d-done!?" someone suddenly burst out. 

The Chaos Matron tried to focus her vision on a laughably minuscule rabbit, vibrating like a toy. She felt herself grow agitated with it, so she lifted it up in the air and then turned it inside-out. It made even more noise while being broken than it did while whole, but afterwards it was quiet. The other creatures...people? Yes. The other people seemed even more ill at ease now. 

"Was that wrong?" the Chaos Matron asked the kneeling raccoon. 

"They are merely apprehensive of your magnificent power," he answered. "Like your pathetic predecessor, you have total control over the element of water. Even the fluids that run through the living body are yours to command, as...aheehee, you so impressively demonstrated just now. Nothing could be wrong for a rightful ruler, but it may be considered wasteful to do away with your humble servants." 

"Then they may be." 

Only that black hedgehog didn't seem emotional like the rest. It was just standing there watching with its arms crossed. 

"Are you my servant?" the Chaos Matron asked the hedgehog. 

"No," said Shadow, and leapt at her. 

Kicks and punches, thrown at supersonic speed, rained down on the Chaos Matron, who stood idly by without moving. After striking the final blow, Shadow jumped back and surveyed the damage he'd done. The Chaos Matron merely blinked, then looked down at herself as the wounds closed shut and the gelatinous surface reformed. After a few seconds she was whole as before. 

"Is this a game?" the Chaos Matron asked, genuinely curious. 

"Aheeheeheeheehee!!" the raccoon laughed. "Stupid puppet. Did you really think you could harm the Chaos Matron? She could make the very oceans rise up and strike you down if she wanted to. Even if you had the seven Chaos Emeralds, you still wouldn't be a match for her! By the way, they should be reforming randomly around the world about now. Feel up to a wild goose chase, Shadow the Hedgehog? Aheeheehee!" 

"Hmph!" Shadow uttered simply, then departed in a flash of Chaos Control. 

"That laughter," the Chaos Matron mused. "Why does the sound of it feel warm and tense? Why does it feel right that I should break you, servant?" 

Mr. Query was no fool. Before the brand new god could make up her mind, he fired up his portable time portal and made an emergency exit. That left only Ernst and the unidentified third scientist still behind. After the Chaos Matron killed them both, there was only herself. 

Veronica's memories locked up in the Chaos Matron's mind grew stronger from the hate and revulsion she had felt towards Mr. Query in the previous lifetime. Very soon the older and more experienced self would win control over the confused and weak ego belonging to the chao that had died along with the twin-tailed fox during the Chaos Matron's birth. 

"I am," the Chaos Matron said once more. 

- 

_To Be Continued._


	27. Chao Cataclysm Part Three

**Chapter 25: Chao Cataclysm (Part Three)**

_"Mistar Quuerie!"  
_

_  
"Hello, little dears!"  
_

_  
After disposing of the butler, Mr. Query wasted no time calling the children down to the main hall. Everything so far had gone exactly according to play, barring a few minor errors that were corrected in no time. Now there was only one step left before he'd won. There was only one more thing he had to do to destroy the world and the future containing both his nemesis and the one police force able to stop him; the Temporal Protectorate. The Chaos Matron had power enough to wipe this planet clean of human and animaloid life, but she needed motivation.  
_

_  
Mr. Query greeted Veronica Prower's children with an evil smile. Funny, for all the murders he'd committed, he'd never actually put children to death before. Rumour had it that was much harder than killing an adult. Well, only one way to test that theory..._

- 

He couldn't breathe. Trying to open his eyes just caused stinging pain. Lungs burning, he thrashed towards the surface of the tough substance. Cold air. Jedo breathed in deep. 

Then he opened his eyes. 

Glowing green eyes watched him from every direction, their natural illumination blinding out the night. The substance the chameleon was caught in flowed apart, leaving him lying on the ground between creatures that looked for all the world like that overused movie monster, whatever it was called. 

"Is this hell?" Jedo asked. 

By way of answer, one of the silent brutes grabbed the chameleon and tossed him into the ornamental garden built beside the main entrance to Prower Tower. At least it was a soft landing, not counting the rose bushes. The thorns weren't that bad either, actually. Thank goodness for tough lizard skin. 

Jedo slowly got to his senses. Last thing he remembered was enduring horrible friction burns as he tried to get a grip on the glass surface flying past him at far too great speed. He looked at his left hand, and then the pain flowed back at full force. Jedo bit his tongue and involuntarily shook his badly burned hands about, accidentally touching the rose bush which REALLY stung against the thinly-worn palm. He tried to stand up, and got a second verse of pain from his spine. Since he should technically be dead, he probably wasn't in any place to complain. 

What the hell were those things? Hundreds of gelatinous blue monsters with glowing green eyes crowded around the building so tightly packed that some of them blended together. It looked like the bunch of them that Jedo had landed on were still struggling to figure out which bits belonged to which. The rest were just staring upwards. Considering the amount of force that the one monster had utilised in idly throwing the chameleon aside, Jedo didn't want to stick around to find out what happened when those things started giving their full attention to a foe. 

Jedo ran down the street, and stopped dead for two reasons. One, his right ankle was dislocated, and hurt like seven kinds of hades. Two, there wasn't any direction he could go that wouldn't lead him right into the path of more monsters. 

They were everywhere! Some were tossing parked cars around and destroying property. Some were trying to hold back the more violent ones. But all of them, absolutely all of them were moving in the same direction. Jedo found himself following the gaze of the creatures, looking up towards the peak of the Prower Tower. All he could see from way down here was a single speck of golden light... Huh. A single speck of golden light that had just passed over the edge of the roof and was now moving through the air. 

Jedo lowered his gaze to see all of the monsters thronged around the base of the structure start moving. The chameleon became painfully aware that he was probably standing right beneath the speck of light that they were all drawn to. Standing between two tidal waves of watery monsters, Jedo shouted a swearword and started sprinting, limping, off to the side, to escape being trampled to death - or worse if one of the aggressive ones got a hold of him. 

What the hell had happened up there? Jedo now wished he'd paid a lot more attention to the stray info he'd acquired on the Prower lady's illegal experiment. He knew it had something to do with chao, but this- Wait, chao! CHAO!! Holy crap, that was what they were, wasn't it? All those monsters were chao changed into...into...Chaos! Yeah, that was the name of the monster in the movies. As a child of the new generation, Jedo had barely even believed that there'd ever lived a blue hedgehog named Sonic. All the stories about him were just too far-fetched. He was prepare to believe it all whole-heartedly now, though. If the monster from the movies was real, and there was a hell of a lot of it, then maybe all sorts of other stuff was real too. 

Jedo made a dive for an alleyway, barely escaping the Chaos horde. From relative safety, he watched the monsters pool together over the spot beneath the light in the sky. Suddenly the chameleon thief remembered his gear. He reached into his pack and found his high-tech binoculars to be miraculously undamaged. Alright, the left lens was smashed, but he had two eyes, didn't he? He put on the binoculars and tried to zoom in on the speck of golden light. 

"No way..." he said to himself. "No ing way!!" 

So that was what she wanted the seven Chaos Emeralds for? To transform herself into that-that thing!? 

Jedo limped onward, navigating the alleyways until he found himself back in the open streets. He needed room to move if more Chaos things showed up. And then, just as Jedo started to wonder why the cops weren't doing anything about this sudden invasion, he got his answer in full bloody clarity. He was facing what had evidently been a road block set up to stop the march of the Chaos army. Jedo had seen dead birds in the road sometimes, ones that had been run over so many times that the speck of blood and feathers was hardly recognisable. Seeing a human in that state was different. Seeing dozens of dead bodies trampled flat was nauseating. Having seen how the brutes ignored him for the most part, Jedo felt certain that the ones responsible for this carnage hadn't been driven for bloodshed. They just hadn't let themselves be stopped by anything, alive or not. Trying to hold your ground against those things was obviously suicide. 

Marbles bumped around as Jedo walked onward. He looked down, desperate to lock his eyes on anything other than the creamed bodies. Bullets. Hundreds of bullets. Jedo had seen lots of used bullets in his life, and they were normally flattened from the impact. But these, these were all in perfect condition. The rounds must've gotten caught inside the gelatinous bodies of the creatures, just like Jedo had when he fell onto the crowd of them from above. 

At that point the chameleon stopped. He sat down on the back end of an overturned police car, facing away from the carnage, and pondered his next move. No wonder the streets were empty. The citizens must be cowering in their homes, afraid to go outside. The cops had fought and lost. And the military once again had a head with a brain in it. That bat Commander with the huge knockers wouldn't be stupid enough to start a full-scale offensive against monsters that would grow back good as new no matter how much you hurt them. Well, that was how it had happened in the movies, and Jedo had no reason to distrust that information now. Trying to fight a war against an army of Chaos would just result in a hell of a lot of property damage and civilian casualties. 

What did he want? Revenge, that was what. Did the fact that the old bag was now a blue and pink flying monster with an army of unstoppable water-elementals change that? Well, yeah, but he was used to having to improvise. He couldn't harm her physically, but maybe mentally. Leverage, that was what he needed. What could he use against her? 

"Hmmm..." 

Didn't the old lady have a couple of brats? Yeah. Jedo knew where she lived, as he'd done plenty of research after accepting the job to to collect the Chaos Emeralds for her. All he had to do was break in to her house, take the little brats hostage, and then get everything he wanted from their makeshift god of a mother. He doubted he could bring himself to kill a kid, but just taking one of them along as insurance should make him untouchable. 

Apart from one brief stop to grab a first aid kit out of a toppled ambulance, Jedo headed straight for Lady Veronica Prower's private mansion. It was a bit of a trek, but the chameleon made great time on a hover-bike that somebody had abandoned with the keys in the ignition. 

After parking outside the mansion, Jedo spent a few minutes pondering how to get past the fences, the sensors, the freakish guard dogs, and the rest. Then he noticed that he power had been cut, rendering the security systems totally worthless. So he casually strode to the front door and pushed it open. 

Jedo the Chameleon did not expect to be greeted by the same kind of futuristic gun that the raccoon who tried to kill him had wielded. 

"Who the hell are you?" asked the wielder. 

- 

_Mr. Query greeted Veronica Prower's children with an evil smile. Funny, for all the murders he'd committed, he'd never actually put children to death before. Rumour had it that was much harder than killing an adult. Well, only one way to test that theory...  
_

_  
"How would you children like to see a really neat trick?"  
_

_  
The boy started flying, probably just because his sister hadn't learned how to yet. "Is it a better trick than that stupid finger thing?" he asked rudely, apparently still sore that he couldn't pull it off.  
_

_  
"Oh certainly. Do you kids know what this is?"  
_

_  
"'issa a new water pistoh?" the little girl asked, absent-mindedly batting at her brother's feet.  
_

_  
"Close, but not quite."  
_

_  
Mr. Query took aim at the younger of the oblivious children.  
_

_  
The sound of flesh being torn was nearly muted by the noise of the void pellet moving through air, but you could still hear it, oh yes. Mr. Query's smile faded._

- 

"Who the hell are you?" asked the wielder. 

Jedo was worried for a second, but calmed himself quickly. "Nice try, kitty," he said. "But I happen to know that that gun only works for the raccoon who owns it." 

The aggressive orange cat aimed the weapon slightly to the right and vaporized a large chunk of the woodwork, then moved it back towards Jedo's face before he had time to react. 

"I brought my own," said the cat, smiling. 

The sound of whimpering made Jedo look down towards the floor. A three-year old twin-tailed fox girl peeked at him from between the legs of the cat in the red catsuit. A second later, the head of her older brother appeared as well. He stuck his tongue out. Boys will be boys. 

"Now let's play 20 questions," the cat went on. "The subject is a raccoon going by the name Mr. Query. If you win, you get to live. Shall we begin?" 

"Er...am I supposed to be asking, then-" 

"Okay, forget that. Lousy analogy. I'm gonna interrogate you, and if I like what I hear, I won't kill you." 

"Well...that's nice." 

- 

_The sound of flesh being torn was nearly muted by the noise of the void pellet moving through air, but you could still hear it, oh yes. Mr. Query's smile faded.  
_

_  
"Children, please look away," said a voice from the direction of the kitchen.  
_

_  
Mr. Query made a funny face, and then fell flat on his back. Most of his stomach was now little more than a mess of blood and guts.  
_

_  
"That...really hurt," said the dying raccoon.  
_

_  
"Kids, Trevor? You were really going to kill a pair of kids? God. You know, there isn't a lot that would make me break my promise not to kill you, but that'd do it. At least the other you is rotting in jail. Shame you won't have a chance to join him."  
_

_  
"How...how did you find me...? Y-you're not e-even supposed to be...born."  
_

_  
"Oh really? Well, whatever you tried to do to keep my parents apart, you screwed it up, Trevor. Didn't you know that a time traveller can leap over a fatal distortion wave by jumping through time before it hits? That's how we stayed alive in the timeline where Black Doom had conquered Earth and killed just about all our ancestors. The timeline isn't fixed yet, but I'm still here, and I'm not going to rest until I've fixed this mess you've caused."  
_

_  
"Ahee...hee...hee. Good luck...the-the C-Chaos Matron is...is invincible. Even if I can't destroy the world, I'll...at least have sealed its...fate..."  
_

_  
And then, finally, Mr. Query was dead._

- 

"And that's about the gist of it," Jedo finished. "Guess I wasn't the only one who thought of using the kids to get to the old- Er...to get to Miss Prower." 

The cat lowered her weapon. Jedo momentarily considered trying to disarm her, but another look at her face confirmed that such an attempt would be totally suicidal. 

"Take the kids somewhere safe, Jedo. I'm way too busy to babysit right now. I wouldn't advise trying to use them for blackmail, though. Their mother is a lot more powerful than you know. Just keep them out of harm's way." 

Jedo looked at the kids. Something in the murky depths of his tarnished soul stirred. "Alright," he said. 

The cat went forth, but paused and turned back after a few steps. "Wait, if you see Silver the Hedgehog or Blaze the Cat, tell them I'm looking for them." 

"Alright. What's your name?" 

Jedo didn't see the point of the pause before the cat answered. 

"Pia. Just Pia." 

- 

_To Be Continued._


	28. Chao Cataclysm Part Four

**Chapter 26: Chao Cataclysm (Last Part)**

The Chaos Matron let her strong wings carry her down to the ground, where thousands of strange yet familiar creatures crowded around the single opening allowed for the descent of the one all their minds were fully focused upon. How did she know how to fly, she wondered. No, how could she ever not have known? 

The sight before the Chaos Matron as her feet touched the surface was of hundreds of green lights glowing through a sea of blue. She'd seen it before. In a dream? Maybe. Maybe her entire life had been a dream, and she'd only just woken up. The recognised hatred towards the raccoon that she'd felt before - that had been part of her memory of who she was. But the growing sense of familiarity and connection to all the creatures surrounding her - that was also part of her memory, but a different memory. She couldn't explain it to herself. Why was she even trying? Just accept the plain facts. These...Chaos...all belonged to her. In fact... 

All of the Chaos horde, every single one of them, raised their right arm and waved it about. Then they raised their left arm and clapped their hands together, making a wet sound that echoed across a wide block radius from the sheer number of them. The Chaos Matron giggled, producing a sound like bubbles through a pipe. She'd made them do that. She could make them do anything she wanted. They were hers. They had always been hers. The raccoon had lied. 

"You are my only servants," the Chaos Matron announced. 

There was a battle for control going on inside the Chaos Matron's mind. The dominant will and cunning belonged to Veronica, but the innate knowledge of chao and of Chaos belonged to the chao from the haunted tomb. Oddly enough, the curiosity of the newborn ruler was driven by both. 

Right now Veronica couldn't remember her own name, let alone that she had children waiting for her at home. Nevertheless, she instinctively fought to pry control away from the weak mind of the chao. Yes, it was weak, but in spite of Veronica's image, this was still a body forged from chao essence, not animaloid flesh. The mind of the chao wasn't going to abandon its rightful place easily. Veronica's strongest influence from the start was that the conscious mind at the surface naturally thought of itself as female. Chao have no gender. 

"I am..." the Chaos Matron said yet again. 

"I...am." 

"I...am...hungry. What should I eat? I want...I want...fruit. Chao fruit? Yes! Yes. Find me chao fruit, servants!" 

Technically the Chaos Matron could live for eternity with no sustenance, but old habits died hard. At their queen's behest, the Chaos fanned out across the city, many of them heading at once for the chao gardens where they'd lived in their previous existence. 

The Chaos Matron was left alone, standing in the middle of the empty street, seeing everything. So very clearly. There were humans there, and animaloids, in those buildings, watching from behind curtains and corners, keeping their lights off so as not to draw attention. She could see them all. She could feel the water flowing through their bodies. She could kill them with little more than a thought...but...best not to. They made such horrible noise when they were broken...killed? Yes, killed. Ah, yes, humans and animaloids was correct. That was what they were called. 

Should she not have killed the humans and animaloids on the roof? But it felt so right. She had to put that warm tense feeling to rest, and that was the way. But...better that she had killed the raccoon instead. Yes. She should find the raccoon and kill him. 

The Chaos Matron went forth. Perhaps the greatest advantage the free world (and in this time period the "free world" was the entire population of Earth plus most of the habitable planets in the solar system) had at the moment was that the vessel of such god-like power currently had the intelligence of a dim five-year-old. As Mr. Query had said, she had the power to command the very oceans and subsequently control the entire planet, but she was currently occupied with getting chao fruit and punishing a raccoon. The latter act might seem more commanding until you realised that she wasn't going to be able to tell the raccoon who wronged her apart from any other raccoon animaloid. 

- 

"Hello Doctor." 

Eggman Nega sprang comically from his chair and stumbled against the command console. He'd been quietly watching the feeds from the various probes he'd launched into the city as soon as he became aware of the seven Chaos Emeralds. The experienced villain wasn't stupid enough to run personally over to the prize when he might end up facing a Super-empowered hero with a grudge against him. His robotic spies had allowed him to watch the birth of the Chaos Matron and the subsequent destruction wrought by the reckless army of Chaos-creatures. He hadn't expected to suddenly hear Shadow's voice within inches of his ear, causing the aforementioned comical reaction. 

"S-Shadow! Oh, good to see you again my friend! Have you seen how the treacherous GUE have-" 

"Don't bother. I already know the truth about my past. I need your information to track down the seven Chaos Emeralds and destroy that Chaos monster." 

Eggman Nega changed his approach. "What will I get in return, Shadow?" he asked suspiciously. 

"You get to live." 

"My, aren't we serious today? Did you think I was unaware of your pathetic 'code'? You can't kill me. You're too afraid of letting your dark side take over. So why don't you run along back to your girlfriend and cringe while I work out how to deal with those Chaos things." 

Shadow smiled. 

The next thing happened so fast that if you blinked you'd have missed it before your eyelid shut. Thank goodness for slow-motion recounts. Shadow the Hedgehog, all lit with blood-red fire once more, threw out his arm and released energy, blowing a massive hole in the wall. Then, in the very fraction of a second before deadly tons of sea water flowed in Shadow silently activated his Chaos Control power, freezing the destructive flood in zero time while leaving himself and Eggman Nega behind in real time. 

"You're right, Doctor," Shadow said while Nega sat on his rear, watching the frozen wall of water with eyes wide enough to be visible beyond his visor. "It was a pathetic code. Light and dark, good or evil, they're all worthless ideas. All that matters is that I'm not holding back anymore, and because of that I'm stronger than I have ever been! When the Chaos Emeralds are mine once more, I'll be invincible. I can destroy the Chaos monster. Just you wait." 

Eggman Nega got his attitude back with impressive speed. "Don't count on it," he said. "Sonic the Hedgehog attacked a Fourth Stage chao with the full power of the Chaos Emeralds, and all he managed to do was revert it to its default form. You're dealing with a Fifth Stage, and no matter how powerful you think you've become, you have no idea what that thing can do." 

"Ah...so you do know about the monster. Tell me everything, Doctor, or I'll leave you to drown. Hmph! Unless the pressure down here doesn't crush you first." 

Nega could tell the black hedgehog was serious, so he went ahead and explained what he'd found out so far. During the hour and a half since the Chaos Matron's emergence, Nega had been hard at work hacking into Prower Global Enterprises's most secure files to find answers. It was trickier than getting into GUE's networks, but, as he so often proclaimed, he was the greatest genius of all time. 

"Veronica Prower is a real nut case. Of course I can appreciate an effort to conquer the world, but this woman's bizarre ideas are so far beyond anyone's effort to understand that she belongs with a straitjacket. For years she has been trying to make chao, yes chao, can you believe it? Those pudgy little balls of goo that are barely worth the cost of keeping alive..." 

"Stick to the point, Doctor." 

"Right, yes, of course. The public's great idol, the industrial queen Lady Veronica Prower came up with this plan to make chao the dominant life form on Earth. Project Succession, she called it. The succession of man and animaloid kind as the dominant life on this planet. By what? Chao!? Insane! She found out how to replicate the process that created Chaos, the Fourth Stage of chao development. But that wasn't enough for her. She wanted to take the next step. So she had her scientists build a machine capable of creating a mass-effect that would force every single chao in the world to develop to the Fourth Stage instantly. Harrumph! I could've built a machine like that in half the time it took her, but I would never go along with such wasteful use of the seven Chaos Emeralds' power. What that insane woman wanted was a Fifth Stage chao, so why go to the trouble of creating so many Fourth Stage ones, you might ask. It's simple. The Fifth Stage chao is the mind of the hive. It is nothing more than the union of all the Chaos creatures in existence. That's why you can't defeat that monster, the Chaos Matron, as I've named it. You'd have to destroy every single Fourth Stage in her vicinity before you'd even be able to begin to actually hurt her." 

Shadow narrowed his eyes. "I don't believe you. If I have the seven Chaos Emeralds-" 

"You'll be wasting your time. Right now the Chaos Matron is like a newborn child, but once she realises her power, she'll be able to crush you like a bug. The Emeralds would just keep you alive long enough to realise how futile your efforts are." 

"Then what can I do, Doctor?" 

"Find out what happened to the original Chaos, the one Sonic fought. Don't believe the story that it was carried away along with the ghost of some Echidna princess. It was immortal, but it was destroyed. Find out what really happened and use it against the Chaos Matron's army. That's the only way you'll get your chance." 

"What if we use one of your time machines to go back and..." 

"No. It would only make things worse. I saw him, the time traveller responsible for all this being allowed to happen. My probes recorded his confession. If we go back to try to change this chain of events, it will only remind him to drive us both out of the chain so we won't be around to interfere here. If the raccoon were to die here in the present, and the Chaos Matron be defeated after that event, then it would be a true victory, with no chance of temporal interference." 

"A time traveller, huh..." 

Shadow felt uncertain about that one. It seemed far-fetched, but would explain an awful lot. It would be too weak a lie for the Doctor to throw out to save himself. 

"All right, Doctor. I'll play your game for a while. But remember, I will be the one to fight the Chaos Matron in the end." 

"Fine, fine, but wait! Could you save my base before you go." 

"Hmmm? Oh, right." 

Shadow lazily looked at the wall of liquid death frozen in the roughly carved opening. 

A minute later Eggman Nega's undersea fortress appeared in the middle of the most barren stretch of the desert. 

- 

By day break six out of the seven continents of Earth were under siege by the innumerable Chaos. Only the Chaos within a thousand kilometres of the Chaos Matron were instantly drawn to her and devoid of free will. The rest were as free-roaming demons and angels throughout the world. The Chaos that had once been chao raised with love and affection fought ferociously against the Chaos that had once been chao raised to feel resentment and anger. There were thousands of deaths. Those who had bullied their chao found themselves the target of murderous rage. Those who had cared for their chao found themselves with mighty guardians who would fight to protect them. A war was brewing. 

Antarctica was the last bastion of man and animaloid rule. No chao could survive in that environment. The extremely few chao gardens on the continent were sealed off well, as any Chaos that went outside would freeze solid within minutes. Due to the commonness of penguin, polar bear, and other cold climate-accustomed animaloids, Antarctica had been well populated for hundreds of thousands of years. It was only in recent times that humans had come to live there as well, though. Within hours of the Chaos outbreak, the Earth Council had evacuated their main governmental buildings in England and relocated to Antarctica. 

Conquest the Bat, as representative of the global military, was on her way to the southernmost continent as well. She had her work cut out for her trying to prevent the situation from escalating out of control. Far too many of the GUE generals wanted to fight the Chaos with full force. Conquest was running out of backing, no matter how clearly she explained that fighting the Chaos with heavy weapons would result in millions of civilian deaths and nothing else. 

- 

The fourth raccoon the Chaos Matron killed made the most noise of them all. This was getting tedious, and did nothing to relieve her ennui. 

Surrounded by her Chaos servants, the Chaos Matron munched on a fresh chao fruit and wondered what to do next. 

- 

_End of Chapter 26._


	29. Intermission3 GNN Update

**Intermission 3: GNN Update**

"You're watching GNN," said the pre-recorded voice of Jonathan Earl Jones, as the title animation flowed across the screen. 

"Good morning, here are the latest headlines," the stunningly-handsome silver haired artificial news anchor began. "'Chao Crisis Day Three', 'Angel Echidna Intervention', and 'GUE Failure to Act'. I'm Jefferson Borage, you're watching Global News Network. 

"Chao Crisis, Day Three: Things have begun to calm down slightly in many parts of the world since the initial pandemonium caused by the so-called 'Chao Cataclysm'. After initial death tolls rapidly climbed to the thousands, the global crisis has slowly begun to stabilise. The Eastern region of North-America remains in a state of uncontrollable chaos, while civilian and militia forces in South-America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia have begun to enforce a certain degree of order. Just this morning we received word that the fighting in Sydney, Australia, has finally calmed. Citizens allying themselves with benevolent Chaos creatures succeeded in putting to rest the violent Chaos marauders, apparently by utilising liquid nitrogen to petrify the creatures and then stow them away in cold-storage lockers, keeping them unable to cause harm. People facing the same dilemma across the planet are advised to use this method to fight back against the rampaging Chaos. Once again, we must stress the importance of not making any attempt to fight the non-violent Chaos. Reports from Berlin, Germany, are now conclusive that what caused the destruction of the city to accelerate so rapidly out of control was the police's failure to discriminate when attempting to retaliate. As the GUE Commander said in her speech last night, 'these creatures are not mindless engines of destruction. They're intelligent, emotional beings, with each their own individual personality.' For more in-depth coverage of Day Three of the Chao Crisis, log on to our website by pressing the alpha button on your remote now. 

"Angel Echidna Intervention: For the first time since the Independent Nation of Angel Island severed ties with the Former United Federation, the Echidna warriors have made an official proclamation of war against a hostile force. Earlier today Angel Echidna warriors arrived in Brazil, and began fighting against the Chaos threat. Although many recognised 'gifted' animaloids fought against the hostile Chaos yesterday, only the Angel Echidnas have thus far succeeded in turning the tide in any city without relying on the assistance of benevolent Chaos. Although the Echidnas may be criticized for repeating the mistakes made in Berlin, witnesses testify that these animaloids gifted with strength far beyond the norm have so far been highly successful with their methods forcing the Chaos into dormancy through violence then freezing and storing the remains. 

"GUE Failure to Act: The military has suffered tremendous criticism in the wake of its failure to offer assistance in the initial stages of the 'Chao Cataclysm'. GUE Commander Conquest the Bat has continued to defend her actions in spite of harsh accusations, some voiced by senior members of the Earth Council. In light of-" 

Every TV set suddenly showed nothing but static in place of the GNN channel. The rampaging Chaos had just reached the computer that created the AI known as Jefferson Borage, essentially killing the transmission, rather more literally than necessary. The Chaos Matron had wandered into the TV station building simply because she liked the pretty lights on the façade. The Chaos that followed her had killed the staff simply because they were standing in the way. 

"I am..." 

"I am...Veh..." 

"Vehr...?" 

Veronica reached out. 

- 

_End of Intermission._


	30. A Week Later

**Chapter 27: A Week Later**

Seven days ago every chao on the planet underwent an involuntary metamorphosis to the Fourth Stage of chao development. The pandemonium surrounding the event brought death and destruction the likes of which Earth's populace had not seen in centuries. Many cities, including the capital cities of Germany, Egypt and Japan were completely destroyed. Although the initial death tolls had only reported a few thousand casualties, by week's end the number soared into the millions. In truth, the greater part of the victims had been living on the North-American continent. While the violent Chaos in the rest of the world had been gradually dealt with, the Chaos in North-America had not only grown more aggressive over time but multiplied in number exponentially. As the bizarre world-wide flash of light that preceded the metamorphosis had quickly been identified as originating on the East coast of the Former United Federation, it was clear that the mastermind of the cataclysm was hiding somewhere in that region. With innumerable Chaos at its beck and call, the leaders of the world wisely decided to focus their efforts on aiding the victims around the world before making any attempt to send armed forces into the lion's den. 

Although her decisions had been well-thought out, Conquest couldn't defend GUE's inactivity during the Chao Cataclysm sufficiently to preserve her command. To make sure her post was filled by someone with brains and caution rather than a pig idiot like Deni, Conquest the Bat willingly resigned and used what strings she had left to ensure the new Commander was someone she could rely on. The secret truth of the bat was that her failure during the Chaos outbreak had had less to do with the danger of harming civilians than with the pressing urgency of finding Shadow before it was too late. Now that leadership of GUE was in another's hands, Conquest had only one task before her: Find Shadow. 

Shadow the Hedgehog himself spent the full week teleporting back and forth across the world for the sake of completing the quest given to him by Eggman Nega. Between trying to locate the scattered Chaos Emeralds and tracking down surviving experts on the life and nature of chao, the Ultimate Life-Form kept himself very busy. Eventually, the clues he found would lead him to cross paths with a different party. 

Silver and Blaze would have returned to Central City on day one if they could. However, the teleporter network broke down on the night of the Chao Cataclysm, and although many cross-country connections had been restored throughout the following days, it remained impossible to establish a working connection to the teleporters located in North-America. It was simply too dangerous for expert technicians to get to the network points located at the heart of each major city on the continent. Stranded for the time being, Silver and Blaze joined the local militia in battling and freezing down the rampaging Chaos in the region. It wasn't long before the two realised that the most potentially dangerous Chaos of all were still unaccounted for, so with a number of benevolent Chaos at their side, they returned to the haunted tomb to face whatever the Super-Dark Chao might have become. 

With the global pandemonium in effect, Eggman Nega had more freedom than he had ever had in this time period. It wasn't long before he sent his robotic minions out to plunder valuable technological resources from the many abandoned industrial complexes around the continent. The Chaos marauders paid little attention to robotic interlopers, provided the machines didn't physically get in their way. Apart from the Chaos Matron herself, Eggman Nega was probably the only one benefiting tremendously from this supernatural global catastrophe. With Shadow in his present state of mind, Nega had enough common sense not to try to beat the black hedgehog to any of the Chaos Emeralds. The villainous scientist figured he could collect them all from Shadow's corpse after the Chaos Matron killed him. In the off-chance that Shadow actually found out something worthwhile and was able to defeat her...well, Nega could certainly play that scenario to his personal benefit as well. 

Pia the Hedgehog, the cat from the future, kept busy trying to learn everything she could about what had happened over the last few weeks since Mr. Query started manipulating the timeline to his own ends. She had originally hoped that killing the temporal bandit would erase all the damage he'd done, but that device of his that kept him immune from temporal distortion waves also kept his alterations unalterable without physically going back and removing his watch once and again every single fraction of a second that he'd spent in the past. Pia could only count herself lucky that Dr. Pretorious had lost his own copy of that infernal device when he transformed through the power of the Chaos Core, or that dark timeline where the entire planet was flooded with lava would still be reality. 

Jedo the Chameleon managed to keep himself and Veronica's kids hidden away for six days. He kept the brats fed by the simple method of pillaging grocery stores for whatever they needed. By the seventh day, the Chaos Matron's awareness of her own powers had grown enough for her to be able to see through the eyes of any Chaos on the continent, rendering Jedo's ability to hide worthless. The chameleon and the kids were quickly captured and carried off to the Chaos Matron's makeshift palace. 

- 

Prower Tower was probably somewhere underneath all that stuff. Jedo recognised the streets, barely. Those monsters had really gone to town in this town. With his arms and legs trapped in the goo of the big bulky Chaos carrying him, the chameleon had little else to do than take in the sights. Water, that was what it had to be. An upside-down waterfall flowing from the pool surrounding the building to the top hidden away behind heavy rain-filled clouds. Coloured lights were visible in several places along the tower. He probably didn't want to know what the hell was going on in there. Not that he was gonna have much choice, since that was exactly where that big pus-bag was carrying him. The other two oversized Chaos let the kids walk on their own. Their overpowered nut-case mother was probably watching 'em right now. 

As they reached the wall of gravity-defying water, a portion of the flowing liquid separated, creating an entrance into what used to be the Prower Tower. If Jedo thought the outside was freaky, then the interior took the cake. All of the wall decorations, wallpaper, surface coverings, the works - all of it had been scraped clean away leaving only the foundations behind, and what had been erected to replace the destroyed walls was... Jedo had no idea. If forced to offer a description, he would call it "liquid ice. No, not water, stupid. Ice! But...like, non-solid...flowing like liquid, but hard and shiny like, yeah, ice! Get what I'm saying?" And it wasn't just the walls that was composed of that weird stuff. There were sculptures on solid pedestals, ice flowers in ice vases that blossomed and wilted periodically as you watched, and strangest of all there was a fountain right where the ornamental fountain had been in the lobby this room once was. It wasn't water flowing from the fountain. It was light. Clear blue light that seemed to have all the properties of real water, except...it was dry. 

All Jedo could understand was that the old lady had been playing around a lot while he ran around with the constantly-whining brats in dark alleyways and slept in filthy abandoned hotel rooms. Judging by how much more coordinated and focused the actions of the Chaos creatures were now, the old lady clearly had a great deal more control of her fancy new powers now. 

There was another one of those upside-down waterfalls beyond the doorway that used to lead to an elevator. All there was now was a steady flow of water going up the shaft. Before Jedo knew what was happening, the Chaos carrying him stepped into the current. The chameleon started coughing involuntarily, sending a second gulp of water into his lungs. Before he had time to start drowning properly, the Chaos stepped out of the shaft. As both of them crossed the threshold, Jedo felt a bizarre sensation as all of the water caught in his boots and covering his scales got sucked back into the current, leaving him dry as a bone. 

The Chaos Matron was waiting, seated upon her magnificent throne carved of the same fluid-ice substance seen below, though naturally the throne was far more impressive, covered in large jewels that shone with a light of their own. For one second Jedo's greedy eyes mistook the jewels for Chaos Emeralds, before he realised they were merely ordinary precious stones. Jedo's eyes quickly grew a mind of their own, as it became clear that not only the throne itself, but just about every surface in this magnificent room was dotted with jewels. The ice queen must've had her minions collect every shiny piece of jewellery they could find with a ten mile radius. 

"Do you like what you see, Jedo?" the Chaos Matron asked. Jedo hadn't heard the Chaos Matron's voice before, which was a shame, or he'd notice how much more alike Veronica's normal voice it sounded now. 

"Yeah," said Jedo, because he couldn't think of anything else to say. 

"I knew you would. I love beautiful things too, you know. Now more than I did...before." 

The chameleon did not notice the meaningful pause before the last word. He was busy feasting his eyes on the green gem at the very top of the throne - which exactly the right size and cut to be a Chaos Emerald. He just couldn't be sure if the glow was created by the Chaos Matron or if it was caused by the stone itself. 

"Yeah..." 

"I see you're interested in the prize of my collection. It's only one Chaos Emerald, yet all these other jewels pale in comparison. You may have it, after you answer a simple question." 

"Yeah? Anything?" 

Jedo's hunger for revenge had died down as he stuck with Veronica's children. More for their sake than the woman herself had he given up his desire to kill her. Besides, having seen the Chaos Matron's creations, Jedo was realistic enough to know there wasn't a damn thing he could do to harm her. With nothing left to lose, a Chaos Emerald was worth more than life itself. 

"My servants found the raccoon called Mr. Query dead inside my mansion. Did you kill him, Jedo?" 

The chameleon paused for a second, then said "Yeah. I killed the dastard who tried to off your kids, Miss Prower." 

The Chaos Matron smiled. Maybe her eyes made of water and light weren't as good as her fox ones for reading faces, because she seemed to buy Jedo's story. A minute later Veronica's kids were brought up to the throne room. They were understandably unnerved by their mother's new body, but after hearing her voice they rushed forward and hugged her. Jedo, totally ignorant of what it was like to even have a family, didn't understand. He didn't really care. All he cared about was the Chaos Emerald in his hands. 

After the teary reunion was over, the Chaos Matron made one more request to Jedo. 

"Huh? What do you want me hanging around for?" was his response. 

"It's simple. My servants are a force too great for any enemy to overcome, but in my presence their minds are nothing more than reflections of my own. I need advisers. This planet is mine to rule, Jedo, but an immortal ruler will get lonely. I invite you to be the first member of my inner circle. Once the entire populace bows down to my will, yours will be an envied position, my friend. Consider it my gratitude for looking after my children this past week since you saved them from that traitor Query." 

"Yeah..." Jedo looked at the Chaos Emerald again. "Yeah, sure. Why not?" 

"I am pleased." The Chaos Matron smiled. 

"What should I call you, er...great one?" 

"Call me? I am the Fifth Stage chao, the Chaos Matron, the highest form of life and rightful ruler of the world. But...you can call me Veronica." 

- 

_End of Chapter 27._


	31. Another

**Chapter 28: Another**

Silver and Blaze returned to the Prower Global Enterprises base camp situated near the entrance to the haunted tomb. They were not alone. Considering how dangerous the Super-Dark Chao had been BEFORE the Chao Cataclysm, the heroes made sure to bring backup before going to face the what were likely the most maliciously evil Chaos in the world. The father of the little girl who'd been in the hospital at the same time as Silver was there, accompanied by his brother, who could speak English well enough to translate. The Chaos from the hospital was there as well, plus two more benevolent Chaos who'd joined the good guys while they were fighting to restore peace to Beijing. The four non-immortals were equipped with fire extinguishers filled with liquid nitrogen - as mentioned, it was the only effective way to immobilise the violent Chaos-creatures. 

"Ugh, what's that smell?" Blaze wondered aloud, covering her nose. 

The unusual group of seven passed through the undergrowth and saw what was left of the base camp. 

"Oh no!" Silver exclaimed. 

It was even worse than they'd feared. The base had been utterly destroyed. The stench was from the bodies of the PGE expedition, killed on the spot a week ago and left to rot in the sun. The human and animaloid corpses shared their final resting place with a number of wild animals who'd been drawn by the smell of meat and evidently killed in the same fashion as the people. 

For a long time the animaloids, humans and Chaos stood still, looking at the carnage before them. It was one of the Chaos that stepped forward first, walking close to the nearest body and then digging its powerful hands into the soil without hesitation. Silver had never heard of chao burying their dead. The Fourth Stage chao must've learned that from its human family. Without a word, he approached and started shifting earth with his psychokinesis... 

Sunset slowly approached. The other two Chaos had got to work soon after the first, and one of the other Chinese brothers not long after that (Silver couldn't tell the identical twins apart until the one who could speak English opened his mouth). Only Blaze and the other brother stayed put and kept watch. Silver was used to Blaze being the more collected and focused of the pair, but he could tell she was struggling to stay composed in the face of this horror. The waiting brother could barely stay upright after he was violently ill at the sight of all the mutilated bodies. Silver didn't know why he wasn't reacting the same. He felt strangely detached from the situation. Once the reality of it all hit him, he'd probably be in a worse state than Blaze was. For now, just clear the mind of all thoughts and carry on the task... 

The Chaos didn't seem to see any difference between the dead people and the dead animals. They dug graves and put the bodies respectfully to rest regardless of species or sentience. 

By the time the last grave was filled, the seven of them were standing in the twilight. Silver would have far preferred to face the horrors of the cave during daylight, but there was nothing that could've made him abandon the solemn task put before him. 

"Are you ready?" Silver asked Blaze. 

She nodded. 

"You two don't have to come with us, you know," he said to the human brothers. 

"We go," said the one called Yu. His brother, Tann, nodded after hearing the translation. 

_"Cannot let these monsters remain at large, or even more people will die,"_ Tann explained, and Yu related the same to Silver in English. 

"Alright. But stay behind us. Remember the plan. Our regenerating friends go first and attack the evil Chaos. Don't use the liquid nitrogen until they've got the bad guys stuck in puddle state, or unless one of those things attacks you, of course." 

The party crossed the threshold of utter blackness. It occurred to Silver then that the monsters must have ventured outside the comforting darkness to be able to destroy the base camp. When they'd last been at the camp it had been practically flooded with light fixtures set up for safety, so that could only mean that the transformed Super-Dark Chao weren't so afraid of illumination anymore. Silver shuddered in the dark. No wonder Blaze hadn't taken her eyes off the cave mouth the whole time they were digging the graves. She probably figured it out right away. 

Time moves slowly when you're expecting to be plunged into life-threatening peril at any second. The party had only been walking for about ten minutes, at a very slow pace, but Silver was sure it'd been over an hour since they went inside. At least his eyes had adjusted to the gloom so he could see by the glow of Blaze's flame and the Chaos' shining green eyes. 

The sound of crunching underfoot told Silver that they'd just reached the point where he and Blaze fought for their lives a week ago. He tried not to think about the fact that he was walking on the bones of the previous foolish explorers who'd ventured into this horrible place. He wasn't doing a very good job of it. 

And then... 

And then nothing else happened. 

It was terrifying. They were now further into the cave than they'd managed to go before. Just a little further and they'd be beyond the passage that the PGE scientist who retrieved the pure chao had dashed through. 

"Everybody stop for a second," Blaze said suddenly. "I'm going to turn up the lights." 

Silver knew what she was going to do, so he shielded his eyes before the pyrokinetic feline put her hands together and strengthened the flame in her grasp. 

There was a loud and unanimous gasp from those present with vocal chords. Dozens of sinister Chaos were lined up along the walls of the cavern. Silver instinctively wrapped himself in his psychokinetic aura and tensed for battle. But...still nothing happened. The monsters, and they definitely were monsters, just stood there. Those horrible black Chaos with no eyes just stood where they'd lined up, as still as statues. If the gel of their bodies didn't pulse and flow all the time, Silver wouldn't have believed they were alive. 

"Why aren't they moving?" Yu asked, voicing everyone's thoughts. 

"I...don't know," Blaze answered. "Maybe the Prower Global Enterprises scientists managed to come up with a way to suspend them?" 

"If the scientists managed this, then what the heck destroyed the base?" Silver wondered. 

"I don't know," said Blaze, "but I've got a feeling the answers are just ahead." 

Blaze put out her overpowered flame, preparing to conjure up a fresh torch. With their night vision ruined, the group saw something they hadn't been able to see before. The passage ahead was lit by a glow so dim they hadn't seen it until their surroundings fell back into total darkness. 

They continued forward. 

With the threat of the Dark Chaos temporarily put to rest, Silver and Blaze took the lead before the three Chaos, and the party picked up the pace. The passage got a lot more narrow, forcing the two humans and three Chaos to bend as they walked, whereas the short animaloid pair managed to walk upright with the tips of their ears brushing against the ceiling. They turned a narrow corner, and then had to squint to make out anything as they were suddenly looking towards daylight. 

A serene light of unknown origin gave the underground Chao Garden the appearance of being situated outside on a warm Summer's day. Silver and Blaze didn't have time to admire the beauty of the garden because their eyes were immediately drawn to the chao floating calmly above the sparkling pool surrounded by vibrant green grass. 

The chao was the size of an ordinary domestic blob of gelatinous cuteness, but formed out of the same unique substance as the Chaos, with unusually large pink wings and the brightest mood ball any of them had ever seen. The chao took in the sight of its visitors and opened its mouth to speak, but instead of the "Chao!" that they expected to hear, it said in a plain voice: 

"Welcome to my home. My name is Buta. How may I be of service to you?" 

Silver's jaw dropped. The Fifth Stage chao merely smiled pleasantly. 

- 

_End of Chapter 28._


	32. The Truth of Chaos

**Chapter 29: The Truth of Chaos**

"Welcome to my home. My name is Buta. How may I be of service to you?" 

Silver's jaw dropped. The Fifth Stage chao merely smiled pleasantly. 

"You can talk!" Silver exclaimed. It was a fairly lame comment, and he felt a split second of embarrassment before Yu cut in. 

"The chao says its name is Buta, and that it welcomes us to its home," Yu said in a hollow voice. 

"I heard him," Silver answered reproachfully, unsure how to feel about the floating chao's bemused expression. 

"Begging your pardon Mr. Hedgehog, but it is speaking Chinese." 

"What? No it isn't-" 

"Excuse me," said Buta, lifting his blobby arms in a gesture of peace. "Although chao are remarkably intelligent, we are not equipped to manage human or animaloid languages. If you would be so good as to notice that my mouth is not moving at this moment." 

They noticed it. 

Another moment of silence began, but was quickly broken when Blaze stepped forward and asked "Did you have anything to do with what happened to the people at the camp?" in accusatory tone. 

Buta shook his head sadly. "Yes, I was responsible for that tragedy. I did not intend to cause any harm, but nevertheless through my overconfidence and hastiness I caused it all. I am to blame." 

Blaze clenched her burning fist. "Do you have any idea how many people died out there?" she asked through gritted teeth. 

"Thirty-four." 

"That's...right," Blaze uttered, thrown slightly off track. 

_"What do you mean that your overconfidence caused all those deaths?"_ Tann asked suddenly. By his muddy clothes, it was evident that he was the brother who helped Silver and the Chaos dig the graves outside. It didn't matter that half of the group didn't understand his words. They got the tone and context right away. 

"I can control chao," came Buta's voice from the middle of the three Chaos standing behind the humans and animaloids. Buta himself continued, saying "After the Change, I thought I could use my new-found power to bring back the offspring that was stolen from this sanctuary. I was not ready. Once I had driven the malicious chao out into the open air they refused to obey me anymore. Their fear of daylight and hatred towards all living things was stronger than my will alone. By the time I was able to regain control they had already killed everyone in sight. I am truly sorry." 

"_Forgiveness for your mistake is not ours to give,_" said Tann. 

"I know." 

"_But you can still make amends by helping us save others from the same fate. If you can control Chaos, you can put a stop to the rampages happening all over the world,_" said Yu. 

"You call them 'Chaos'? We are chao, whatever form we may take. sigh And my duty to my kin must come first. However long it will take, I must purge the poor children who strayed from their ancient home and were possessed by the malice of dead spirits. They have lived in torment for centuries. I cannot leave them now." 

"_I...understand._" 

Silver thought of the ravenous monsters he'd fought here the week before, and about the blackened blind Chaos standing immobile along the cavern walls. He personally believed those chao were too far gone to ever be brought back to sanity, but he kept it to himself. 

"No, Silver," said Buta. "They are not lost. They have merely forgotten who they are." 

"You can read my mind?" Silver asked, looking alarmed. 

"No." 

"Then how...?" 

"I do not know. It has only been seven days since the Change, the event you call the Chao Cataclysm. I have not yet fully learned the extent and limits of my new self. Perhaps in another week I will understand. 

"It wounds me that all of you see the Change as an evil thing. Even now you are wondering how to undo the transformation it has caused in my kind." 

Silver looked at his feet, then looked up at Buta with a serious expression. "If it's good or evil, I don't know, but I do know that it wasn't supposed to happen. Pia never said anything about a future ruled by chao." 

"Pia?" Blaze repeated, looking at her partner with a raised eye brow. 

"He is referring to your daughter," Buta explained, ignoring the sudden panicked look of the white hedgehog. "Silver has kept his adventure alongside her a secret from you, Blaze, for fear that the information might affect your relationship and consequentially the birth and upbringing of your child." 

"What!?" Blaze exclaimed, louder than she'd intended. 

"Please stop!" Silver begged the gossipy Fifth Stage chao. 

"I will not help you discover the origin of the Change, for you would only use that knowledge to undo it. However," Buta added before the red-faced Blaze could protest, "I am willing to share whatever I can to help you put the violent chao to rest until I can seek them out and alleviate their suffering. Ask me whatever you wish." 

Blaze looked at Silver, who avoided her gaze. 

"Alright, if you can see into our minds like that, then why don't you tell us what you think we should know based on what we've been through already?" she said, phrasing herself carefully. 

"Very well. Give me a moment." 

It was a pretty long moment. 

"Troubling," Buta said at last. "You have seen so many Chao Gardens over the last couple of days, yet there are none such as I. The convergence of chao that brought me into being does not appear to have occurred elsewhere. If that is true, then perhaps you should be aware of the circumstances surrounding my rebirth into what you see before you." 

"Perhaps we should," Blaze agreed, folding her arms. 

"Know that what Veronica Prower told you was a lie. Although faint, I can feel the chao living in this region, well beyond this underground sanctuary. There was never a virus or any other threat to the survival of chao throughout the world. The claim that my kin and I have lived for millennia without contact from other forms of life was not a lie, but only because she did not know any better. The truth is that my name has been carried with my kin for innumerable generations in order to remember the human family we once knew, far away from this place. The man Buta taught us how to achieve inner peace through meditation and how to transcend our reincarnation and live forever. You know the normal lifespan of a chao. Would you believe that many of us were over eight hundred years old? Our isolation in this secret sanctuary was by choice, to live here until Buta returns to us." 

"Buta..." Yu's lips moved silently, then suddenly it hit him. "Buddha!?" 

"Perhaps," said Buta calmly. "Over time our numbers dwindled, as misguided chao grew impatient and left our home. You...have seen what became of them. Only ten of us were left when He came to us..." 

"Buddha?" Silver asked, feeling confused, but attentive enough to notice the capital letter in the pronoun. 

"No. The immortal that sought to die. The first of the chao you people so foolishly refer to as 'Chaos'. I do not know how long He had wandered the world before finding our sanctuary, but by your reckoning it would be sometime in the twenty-second century that He arrived in our midsts. It was our knowledge of chao reincarnation that He wanted. Specifically, how to stop it. It was not our place to inquire why He wanted to die. Our sacred duty has always been to ease suffering, and the immortal one was suffering terribly, longing to rest at last." 

"And did you do it? Did you manage to kill Chaos?" Silver asked, feeling a twinge of excitement despite the solemnity of the story. 

"Show respect, child!" Buta shouted, raising his voice for the first time since their meeting. 

"I'm sorry." 

"Foolish children! You still cannot put to rest your desire to destroy the Changed chao. If ignorance was a crime worthy of death, how many of your own kind would be alive to this day, animaloid?" 

"Sorry," Silver said again, feeling ashamed. Being told off by Buta made him feel like a little kid being scolded by his mother. 

"This pool," said Buta, resuming his story, "is His final resting place. Teaching Him how to release life from His body took decades, and would never have worked without His cooperation and will to learn. So, no, Silver, even if I would show you how to end a Changed chao's life, you would not be able to." 

Silver said nothing. 

"Ten of us were left in this sanctuary when He came, and ten of us remained until one week ago, when it happened. Although the strayed chao infected by malice continued to breed and multiply, we did not. We learned long ago to abandon our desires for pleasures of the flesh..." 

"Then what happened to the other nine when the Chao- I mean, the Change happened?" Blaze asked. 

Buta sighed. "The youngest of us, the only offspring born in the sanctuary, was taken by force." Then he smiled, as he said "The remaining eight became me." 

Silver opened his mouth to ask how any of that helped them deal with the Chaos epidemic, but thought better of it and wisely stopped to consider it all. Lady Veronica Prower had sent them to China to get a chao from this specific Chao Garden. She'd been wrong about them being isolated from all outside contact for generations, because only one chao had been born since they sheltered themselves away from the world outside. But her satellites had located these chao, nonetheless, perhaps due to their unique training or perhaps because this was where Chaos, the original Chaos, had died. The virus story had been a lie, so what was the real reason why the CEO of Prower Global Enterprises was after those chao? According to the news reports, the Chao Cataclysm had originated in Central City, and the Chaos rampages were at the most uncontrollably destructive in North-America, especially at the East Coast, where Central City was located. The way the pieces fitted together, it could mean only one thing: There was a chao like Buta in Central City, and it was using the Chaos to conquer the entire continent. If that was what PGE had intended or if something had gone disastrously wrong, Silver wasn't sure. 

"I think-" Silver began. 

"There must be a Fifth Stage chao running the show in Central City," Blaze concluded. "With the destruction going on around there getting worse all week long, it must have evil intentions. If we don't stop it, the whole world could be next on its agenda." 

Silver was left with his mouth hanging open and a heroic expression that quickly faded to annoyance. Buta laughed. 

The chao looked past the party, while Silver grudgingly agreed with Blaze on the brilliant deduction that he was sure he'd figured out first but failed to voice in time. 

"A black hedgehog has just materialised nearby and begun attacking my kin," Buta announced, looking distraught. "Do any of you know of this?" 

"What, you mean Shadow? What's he doing here?" Silver wondered. 

"Shadow the Hedgehog," Buta mused. "How...troubling. I have not sensed such suffering since the day He came to this place. I believe Shadow will not listen to reason. He will certainly try to kill you all once he realises that you have the information he seeks." 

"You've gotta be kidding!" said Silver. "Shadow is our friend. There's no way he-" 

The sounds of combat echoed forth from the narrow passage behind the group. 

"Silver, I think we should listen to Buta right now," Blaze reasoned. 

"There is very little time left. I have animated the malicious chao to stall him, but he will certainly defeat them soon. Though it pains me, I will have to leave my home to take you all to safety." 

"No way! If he wants a fight we'll give him one!" Silver shouted. 

"I should mention that Shadow has six objects of immeasurable power on his person. They are- Ah, what you call 'Chaos Emeralds'." 

"You know, on second thought, a tactical retreat is probably the best way to go right now," Silver declared. 

- 

Shadow stomped down on the gooey remains of the last Dark Chaos. Before the creatures could reform, Shadow grunted menacingly and unleashed a massive blast of Chaos Control energy, teleporting the monsters far away. It said a lot about the Ultimate Life-Form's present state that he didn't care where the murderous Chaos wound up, as long as they didn't stand in his way anymore. 

The time spent torturing that old chao scholar for answers had been worth it. This had to be the legendary 'Grave of Chaos'. Shadow could feel the energies surrounding this place, even through the waves of undying agony issued forth from the ghosts that haunted this old tomb. The feeling reminded him of what he'd felt when he faced the Chaos Matron. If Eggman Nega had been telling the truth, the key to destroying the false goddess should be here. 

Shadow the Hedgehog grinned evilly. He'd never felt excitement like this before. He finally understood the mindset of Sonic the Hedgehog. The passion of letting all his powers flow freely was greater than anything he'd ever experienced before. From now on there was no way but forward. 

"Hahahahahaaa! Where are you, chao guru? I'm coming for you now!" 

- 

Thousands of tons of rock caved in, sealing off the tomb for good. Moments later, Shadow materialized in the moonlight outside where the entrance had been before the avalanches buried it. After finding the innermost chamber empty, the Ultimate Life-Form had vented his frustration by destroying the cavern completely. 

No matter. The secret wouldn't elude him for long. He'd find it, just like he'd found all but one of the seven Chaos Emeralds hidden throughout the world. No river of blood was too deep to wade through to get the last Emerald and the secret to destroying the Chaos Matron. 

- 

_End of Chapter 29._

**Historical note: Although Siddhārtha Gautama, the original Buddha, is said to have lived over twenty-four hundred years ago, the term Buddha is used in Buddhism to refer to any being who has transcended the realms of suffering and achieved Nirvana. The Buddha that Buta is referring to in this chapter is more likely a Buddhist monk, and the notion of his return to the chao is likely based on a misunderstand, as a true Buddha would not reincarnate.  
**

**  
****It's fun to learn!**


	33. Secret Agents of the Future

**Chapter 30: Secret Agents of the Future**

Station Square. Midday. Five seconds and a number of timezones since Buta pulled his visitors into the sacred pool in the middle of the lost chao garden. Of all the cities on the Former United Federation continent AKA North-America, Station Square had ridden out the Chao Cataclysm with the least of damage to its properties and populace. Owing to a history of destruction wrought by a very peeved mutated chao, in Station Square cruelty to chao was a considerably greater offence than in any other part of the continent. As a consequence, the benevolent Chaos outnumbered the hostile ones by far in the aftermath of the Cataclysm. Being located on the opposite coastline to Central City, Station Square was also just about far enough away to be spared the worst of the Chaos Matron's influence...at least for the time being. 

Silver and Blaze emerged from the pool, coughing up water, and generally struggling to get dry air back in their lungs. Buta was already floating patiently above the lawn, as dry as a life form composed mainly of semi-solid liquid could ever be. The animaloids blinked bleary-eyed in the bright light of the sun. They seemed to be in someone's backyard, and the first thing they saw was an outline of skyscraper-like silhouettes against the blinding light in the sky. 

"That was...incredibly unpleasant," said Silver, while Blaze rather more relevantly chose "Where are we?" as her first words. 

"Station Square," Buta answered. "It seemed an apt choice. I have always wanted to see this place, ever since the immortal who sought death first told me about it. This is the land of the misguided chao master you seek to defeat, I believe." 

"That's impossible!" Silver protested, while making the effort to stop his soaked spines from flopping forward over his face. 

"How did you do that?" Blaze asked, drying herself off with a gentle hand-held flame. 

"Quite easily," said Buta, looking around with an amiable expression. 

"But you're not going to explain HOW you transported the three of us halfway around the world in- Wait, what about Yu and Tann and the Chaos- I mean, the Changed chao?" 

Buta drifted down to the grass and experimentally touched the ground with his stubby chao feet. He focused his attention on a lovely bed of daffodils. "I sent them home. To home as they know it. Those brave brothers would likely not survive a direct confrontation with a hostile chao similar to myself. As for the dear children, I fear they would be placed under your enemy's control long before they could render any assistance to your cause." He didn't take his eyes off the plants at any time. Although apparently lacking a nose, the god-like chao sniffed the flowers, apparently enjoying himself greatly. 

"What about Shadow?" Silver asked. 

"He will eventually follow us here. Did you know that at the heart of his power lies the same essence that belonged to the first Changed chao." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Silver, the Artificial Chaos guarding the Ark, remember?" said Blaze thoughtfully. "Professor Gerald Robotnik invented his Chaos replica robots before completing his Ultimate Life-Form project. No wonder Shadow is so naturally attuned to the energies of the Chaos Emeralds." 

"I am not familiar with the images in your minds," said Buta, "but would it also be of interest that in spite of Shadow's close connection to chao, the liquid that flows through is veins is unresponsive to my influence?" 

"Huh?" went Silver. 

"I can control water. There is much water in the living body. Theoretically, I could lift you up in the air by grasping your blood from within or, rather gruesomely, make you burst. Such things are unthinkable, but theoretically possible. Not so with your black hedgehog friend." 

"Black Doom's blood," said Silver, now carrying on mainly for the sake of making sure Blaze had forgotten about Pia in all the commotion. 

"Again, I am not familiar with this...peculiar creature from space, but it occurs to me that you should both take precautions in the likely event that my unappealing twin attempts to take advantage of your biological structure." 

"Wait," said Silver, "are you telling me we'll be fighting a villain who could pop us like balloons as soon as he looks at us?" 

"Visual range is not necessarily required, but yes, that is the idea." 

"Figures." 

Blaze, now dry as anything, stepped toward her still very moist partner in heroisms and recently-declared boyfriend. "Don't worry," she said. "With Buta's help, I'm sure we'll figure something out. In the meantime," she continued, and Silver could tell what was coming from the shiver down his spine, "you're going to tell me everything about Pia and this adventure of yours." 

"Uh..." 

- 

Pia the Hedgehog, recently promoted squad commander of the Temportal Protectorate branch of the future GUE, headed across the rooftops of Central City towards the rendezvous point. She was not the only Protectorate agent to manage to make the jump back in time before the temporal distortion waves caused by Mr. Query's historical sabotage completely overwrote the timeline she knew. Five agents had been running loose in the Chaos-ruled Central City since the Chao Cataclysm. It wasn't just luck that had Pia staking out the exact location Mr. Query headed towards after the incident and met his final end at. She was the one co-coordinating the effort to restore the timeline, and she was the one who divided up the stake-out spots, making sure to pick the most likely place for herself. 

The rendezvous point was located in one of the few places the time-travelling interlopers could be sure they wouldn't be interrupted by patrolling Chaos-creatures. The basement freezer of the biggest restaurant in the city. The backup generator kept the ice solid in spite of the city-wide blackouts, and the Time-Travel Jumpsuits that each agent wore kept them safe from frigid harm. 

Pia dashed past the Chaos lounging in the restaurant suite and headed downstairs. Only when she was outside the gigantic freezer door did she deactivate the cloaking field function of her Jumpsuit. When the orange cat in the two-piece red catsuit worn underneath her invisible Jumpsuit covers pulled the door shut behind her, she found a rubber chicken caught in the gap. Trying to pull the door shut only created a noise like "Ka-doink-ka-doink". Soon the cat rolled her eyes and kicked the chicken away. 

"Sorry," said a voice in the darkness surrounding the hanging meat carcasses. "Jennifer knocked over the lost and found box by the stairs on our way down." 

"Tattle-tale," responded a whimsical female voice. "Sorry, Pia. Don't worry, the big goo-bags upstairs didn't notice a thing." 

"Just be more careful from now on," said Pia calmly. "Our whole mission hinges on our ability to stay unnoticed." 

"Yeah, yeah. You've said that a million times now," a gruff male voice pointed out. 

"And I'll keep repeating myself until it gets through to you, Terkal." 

Now there was a familiar name. Whether it was an older version of the well-known Angel Echidna Master Sergeant or his as-yet-unborn son, or simply someone entirely different with the same name, was impossible to tell in this dark.

"At least your father knew when to listen to his superiors," Pia continued, solving that mystery well enough. 

"Peh," Terkal Jr. uttered. 

- 

"-and then Pretorious pulled his gun on me AGAIN, but this time Pia was standing in the way, so the shot deflected off her suit. Did I mention that her Jumpsuit was impervious to those weird energy balls that Pretorious's gun fired? Weak as ordinary fabric to normal bullets, though. Good thing that creepy raccoon went for high-tech weaponry. So, anyway, Pretorious taunts us some more, and then runs behind the Master Emerald. I grab a rock to nail him, but Pia-" 

- 

"Riven, have you gotten anything more from the chameleon?" Pia asked the first speaker, who'd squealed on the one named Jennifer. 

"Afraid not. Since the Chaos Matron's cronies carried him inside her lair, I haven't seen scale nor horn of him. That water-logged witch probably killed him just for fun." 

"Drat," said Pia, which was a considerably change from her foul mouth during the previous adventure. "Jedo was our best bet for finding out what happened to the Chaos Emeralds. He was the one who gathered them all for Veronica Prower. If they didn't just scatter naturally after the catastrophe, he'd be the one to know where they were." 

"Why didn't you just ask him when you caught up with him at the Prower mansion?" Terkal Jr. asked suspiciously. 

"I'd wasted enough time questioning him about his connection to Veronica Prower already. I wasn't going to be stupid enough to stay put in the first place the Chaos Matron would go once she got her head screwed on straight!" 

"Hpmh!" 

"If you have anything to say, then say it," said Pia irritably. 

"Nevermind." 

"Good. Now here's the plan from here on." 

-

"-but it's no good, because Sonic is running circles around it while Tails distracts it from above, giving me the chance to finally grab that nasty Devil Omochao with my power and trap it on the floor. I hate to brag, but Sonic couldn't have done it without me. We made a really formidable team. Of course, Pretorious got away AGAIN, because-" 

- 

Conquest the Bat rummaged around the attic of her parents' house, looking for something specific. She'd arrived to find the place empty with no signs of struggle and her parents' luggage missing. That came as a relief, after she'd stressed the importance of getting as far away from Central City as possible. 

At the very bottom of an old trunk, Conquest found what she was looking for. Very carefully she removed the oily plastic layers protecting the family heirloom lying before her eyes. A skin-tight leather costume with a bright pink heart over its chest. Very carefully, the bat checked the miscellaneous hidden pockets and gadgets of the suit. The heart bombs seemed intact. The bulletproof heart-shaped chest plate was every bit as good as 200 years ago. The sharp metal-tipped boots were in excellent condition. It was perfect. 

Those who assumed that Rouge the Bat's outfit was mainly for sexual display got a very nasty surprise as soon as they faced her in actual combat. With the crafty doodads of the suit combined with the bat's superb martial arts talents, Rouge was a warrior equal even to the legendary Knuckles the Echidna, who was frequently considered the strongest animaloid in history. 

Conquest's resolve was stronger than it had been in years. Without hesitation she laid out the battle costume of her ancestor and started undressing. 

- 

"-but I think she was kidding when she said she'd just as much enjoy, er...'companionship' with that under-dressed ferret girl. But, but, you know, if she wasn't kidding, then that's okay, because...I mean, I'm a modern kind of guy. I'd have to be some kind of neanderhog to get worked up about that in this day and age. Seriously. What? I mean it. Anyway, the next day Pretorious took us on the tour of the Gi city-" 

Buta, with front row seats to the imagination of both animaloids, didn't have to ask why Silver pronounced the word 'companionship' in such an odd tone of voice. Being of a genderless species, he found the concepts quite fascinating. 

- 

"And that's how we're going to do this," Pia finished. 

"Great plan," said Riven, ever the suck-up. 

"You're such a suck-up," said Jennifer. 

"Shut up." 

"BOTH of you shut up," said Pia. "This is an important mission and-" 

"Look," said Terkal Jr. "we've been stuck here for over a week. We're underfed and lucky if we can get four hours of sleep a night, so why don't you cut a break, huh, boss?" 

Pia sighed. "Look, I know how hard this is on some of you, but you've all got to understand that if we fail there won't be a future for us to return to. Shadow, back me up here." 

"She's right," said Shadow the Hedgehog, stepping into the slightly less dark closer to the freezer exit. "Believe me, I know." 

- 

"-and then she dropped me off back in the present and returned to her own time," Silver finished. 

The look on Blaze's face was... Well, it was one you really had to be there to see first-hand. 

"What an awful lot of information to digest," said Buta socially. 

- 

_End of Chapter 30._


	34. Chaos Tyrant

**Chapter 31: Chaos Tyrant**

"Pia." 

"Blaze?" 

"Pia is my grandmother's name. She was the one who raised me after my parents-" Blaze stopped in mid-sentence, then quickly switched gears. "She'll be a pyrokinetic like me, will she?" 

"Yeah. I mean, she wasn't- Er... She won't be as good at the fire stuff as you are. I don't think you would've needed to be rescued from Eggman's robots back in Sonic's time period. But because she'll be intelligent, resourceful, and incredibly focused on the job, she'll do great." 

Blaze looked away. "Pia," she said again. "And here I've been wondering about how to turn you down without hurting your feelings." 

Silver's eyes widened. 

"History has been changed, hasn't it? You said so yourself. Pia didn't come from a future ruled by Chaos. I don't know what happened in unchanged history that had me falling for you, but it hasn't happened here." 

"But...we kissed and-" 

"Just a moment of weakness. It didn't mean anything," Blaze answered coldly. 

Silver might have noticed that it was Buta that Blaze kept looking at, but his mind was more than a little occupied. He was about to shout something, but then Buta did interrupt. 

"It may not be my place to speak, but is this deception truly a normal part of animaloid courtship?" the chao wondered. 

"Shut up, Buta!" Blaze commanded in a tone tinged with frost. 

"I have always understood that irrational behaviour is a natural part of human and animaloid social interaction, but to claim a direct contrast to your emotional desires as fact seems simply, if you'll excuse the term, stupid." 

Silver the Hedgehog felt like his whole body was flooded with caffeine-laced butterflies. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then rushed at the cat. Buta stepped a little back to avoid the splash of water from the pool. 

"Ah, now that is rational behaviour," said the chao. "A bit messy, perhaps, but certainly honest." 

While his associates were clearly very busy, Buta levitated to a comfortable height and drifted over to the nearby window. He'd barely had time to appreciate how much the architecture had changed in the past eight centuries since the chao that would merge to become he went into seclusion. He knew at least the basics from the stories told by the one who'd first acquired the ill-fitting name 'Chaos'. Yes, there was one of those boxes of flickering images and sound - only it wasn't a box, but a plate hanging on a wall. All of the furniture seemed aligned towards that particular rectangle. That human woman sleeping on the elongated padded chair must have left the device operational before succumbing to fatigue. At first Buta couldn't hear what noises the device was making, but after recognising the glass of water on the table as an excellent receiver, he could hear everything inside the room clearly. 

"_...exclusive inside report from Central City. Just hours ago this video recording was broadcast across the internet from the cell phone of an actual witness at the heart of the danger zone..._" 

- 

The streets surrounding what used to be Prower Tower were packed with people. Following the Chaos Matron's orders, the Chaos-creatures had rounded up every remaining citizen they could find and driven them towards the heart of the city, where the all-powerful ruler's castle lay. Humans and animaloids of all ages were herded together, and instructed to await the Chaos Matron's arrival by the one member of her army that was able to speak. 

Jedo the Chameleon was hardly recognisable, even to those who knew his default appearance. His body was dressed in very impressive robes cut from the same solidified water material that the interior of the Chaos Matron's tower was made up of. The stump on his forehead now merged with a magnificent horn that shimmered blue as he moved. Priceless jewellery adorned his gloved hands, most precious of all being the green Chaos Emerald that he now wore at all time by a chain around his neck. Of course, all these dramatic changes paled in comparison to the fact that Jedo's eyes now glowed the exact same shade of green as the Chaos-creatures. 

Had the Chaos Matron really believed Jedo's lie that he was the one responsible for killing Mr. Query? No. Just as Buta could so easily he could not help it, the Chaos Matron was learning fast how to bare the mind before her eyes and see what thoughts lay within. Because she knew Jedo would never give his full loyalty willingly, she'd decided to take it by force. The thing instructing the Chaos forces surrounding the people in the open square before the tower was shaped like Jedo, had the memories of Jedo, and behaved like Jedo, but it was nevertheless just another slave to the Chaos Matron's will. 

"Stupid cattle," Jedo was shouting at the struggling people nearby. "Resisting will just get you and your friends and family hurt. Stay where you are and be patient. Your fate will be assigned soon." 

"Assigned by who? Who's in charge here?" a very large elephant animaloid shouted. 

All it took was a nod from Jedo for the nearest Chaos to pummel the elephant to the ground where he stood. 

"The rightful ruler of this world," the possessed chameleon answered. "The indisputable leader of the highest form of life on this planet. The Chaos Matron!" 

There were a few more outbursts, each one quickly silenced by violence. 

There was a long wait, as if the approaching leader enjoyed making the people suffer in tense fear while they awaited her arrival. Finally, the reversed waterfall surrounding the entrance to the tower parted, and the Chaos Matron stepped forth. While the new ruler walked regally towards the crowd, her number one, Jedo, barked instructions to the people. With brute force issued by the guarding Chaos as motivation, the humans and animaloids formed an orderly queue leading to the steps before where the Chaos Matron stood. 

The watery humanoids standing beside the Chaos Matron were considerably larger than the standard variant, more closely resembling Chaos Two than Chaos Zero with their muscular arms and more imposing frame. As the first citizen was pushed forward, the royal guards immediately pushed him to his knees and held him in place. 

The Chaos Matron looked down at the Central City citizen. It was the elephant who'd spoken up earlier. "Do you swear undying loyalty to me as your god and ruler?" the Chaos Matron asked in severe tones. 

"Never, you crazy witch! Just you wait, GUE will destroy you and-" 

With a hardly noticeable movement, the Chaos Matron strangled the elephant from within. The people waiting in line were forced to watch as the animaloid squirmed in agony, quickly turning blue from lack of oxygen to the brain as his blood refused to move, the heart beating in vain. The expression on the dead elephant was horrifying. 

As if nothing had happened, the royal guards pushed the dead body aside and ushered the next citizen forward. 

"Do you swear undying loyalty to me as your god and ruler?" the Chaos Matron asked again, sounding more relaxed this time. 

The boy on his knees wasn't able to get a clear sound past the lump in his throat, but nodded desperately. 

"Good. Then as your first task in service to your queen, you may clean up this garbage on my property." The Chaos Matron gestured towards the dead elephant as she said it. 

- 

By the end of the news instalment, Buta hung his head in sadness. He'd seen his counterpart, and she was far more powerful and gruesome than he had dared to believe. Perhaps his rebirth into this form had been an accident, but hers had been deliberate. Just the little Buta had seen on the recording showed her ability to control far more chao than Buta believed himself capable of. What was also troubling was that the chameleon was clearly taken over by a chao entity, robbed of his own will, which Buta considered to be a more grave sin than murder for a chao. Even a normal unChanged chao had the potential to usurp the will of its nearest, but for a chao that was an unspeakable crime. Even the immortal one had been forced to repent for letting a part of His being involuntarily take possession of a mere frog. 

Hatred wasn't an emotion befitting of a being like Buta, but the closest he would let himself go was the deepest of disapproval, and that was certainly what he felt towards the thing that the possessed chameleon had called the Chaos Matron. Buta knew it was wrong of him to think so, but he was forced to concede that his counterpart would need to be killed for there to be any hope of saving the chao she had enslaved. As Buta had said before, his loyalty lay first with his own kind. Although he certainly felt pity for the humans and animaloids suffering due to the Chaos Matron's actions, his first priority was the chao. 

"Silver! Blaze!" Buta shouted to the soaked pair. 

The two stopped in mid-wrestle and looked up at their new friend. 

"I know now the nature of your, no, OUR enemy. She is evil beyond belief, and must be destroyed. But with our current resources we have no chance of victory. She and I are the same state of being, and so the weakness I know in me must be shared by her. If you drive every chao within her field of influence into submission and then destroy her physical form before any of said chao can reform, then she will be undone. Still alive, perhaps, but a spirit without body, incapable of harming anything." 

"She'll (ow) be a ghost?" Silver asked, noticing only now that he'd cut the tip of his tongue somehow. 

"That is not what I said. If she truly is the origin point of the Change, then her destruction may also reverse the effect of it. I find that regrettable, but as long as she is in power all chao will inevitably suffer. It is necessary." 

Blaze pushed away the one of Silver's wet spines that stuck to her ear for some reason. "Maybe we have no chance of victory, but do you have any idea how we can get that chance? The Chaos Emeralds, maybe?" 

"Most likely, yes. The power of those seven gems would likely grant you sufficient protection from our enemy's influence to be able to fight her on even ground, but no matter how powerful, the two of you would not be enough to fight off her chao servants and give you the necessary window of opportunity." 

"Multiple super forms. It's possible. How many would we need, Buta?" Silver asked. 

"I can only hazard a guess based on what little I've seen, but one hundred should hopefully suffice." 

"A hundred!?" Silver and Blaze both exclaimed. 

"That's impossible!" Silver added, as he was wont to do. 

"Perhaps. But as Silver and your daughter both learned during their exciting adventure across time, the Chaos Emeralds have shaped both the history and the populace of this planet. You both may have forgotten, but there is a species other than chao that possess a greater ability to harness the power of the Emeralds than humans and animaloids." 

"What are you talking about?" Blaze asked. 

Buta smiled. "Are you two ready for another trip to the other side of the world?" 

"Okay, you want it to be a surprise, I get it," said Silver. "But what about Shadow? He's got six of the Chaos Emeralds, and we have no idea where the last one is." 

"The seventh Emerald is held by our enemy's most loyal underling. We will concern ourselves with that later." 

"Fine. Where are we going?" Blaze asked. 

Buta grinned. The water from the pool rose up and enveloped the three of them, leaving nothing but wet grass behind. 

- 

_End of Chapter 31._


	35. Shades of Black Part One

**Chapter 32: Shades of Black (Part One)**

Pia had given each of her comrades a specific task, each one fitted to their particular talents. Jennifer McCoy, the fair-haired human acrobat was instructed to board the primary command satellite of the GUE global defence networks. Once inside, she was to slip past the sensitive security systems within the massive satellite, and locate the mother computer. In the event that GUE decided to unleash an ion cannon bombardment, Jennifer was to manually override the attack and sabotage the system sufficiently to keep it offline for the duration of Pia's operation. The time-travel agents all knew that mere giant lasers would do little more than make the Chaos Matron considerably more hostile and dangerous. Besides, the civilian deaths would be tallied in the millions. GUE couldn't be allowed to make any mistakes this time. 

Presently, Jennifer's task was the least pressing one. The new Commander of GUE, Jack Oberon, was twice the man Deni had ever been, and rivalled Conquest the Bat herself in terms of foresight and cunning. Although animaloids were usually the ones who would became world saviours, this human had no intentions of letting his own species down. Yes, he was a bit of a speciest, but not in the negative way you might expect. Oberon knew animaloids were considerably superior to Man in very many fields, and therefore devoted twice as much effort to proving himself a shining example of humanity's strength. It would take a lot to make the new Commander accept a plan as volatile and uncontrollably destructive as an outright ion cannon bombardment - especially considering that the Chaos Matron had an entire nation of hostages under constant threat. 

Riven the Raven, the stealth expert of the team, was given a far more dangerous task. The standard-issue cloaking device that every agent's time-travel Jumpsuit was equipped with was not enough to ensure safety when stepping into the heart of Chaos-ruled territory. Riven was going to need every ounce of stealth in him to survive the job of tailing the Chaos Matron herself and keeping tabs on her activities. His secondary priority was to snatch the often-seen Chaos Emerald away from the Matron's chameleon underling, but given the extreme risk, Riven wasn't expected to attempt such a feat unless it could be done without raising any alarm whatsoever. Riven knew of the Chaos Matron's nasty powers as well as anyone, having observed numerous murders carried out by the vile queen during the past week. Her getting even the slightest hint of his presence would equal instant painful death. The raven was neither stupid nor reckless, so he wasn't expecting to get hold of the Emerald by himself unless a chance too good to miss fell right in his lap. 

Terkal's gruff teenage son's main forte was of course his fantastic strength. It was therefore really frustrating to him that his task was to stay put and guard the team's secret weapon. Their hideaway was so well hidden that the odds of any actual combat were in the zero region. He was bored after just ten minutes, which was predictable enough that Pia called him up that very minute to remind him in very plain English to stay put and keep his mind on the job. 

Finally, Shadow the Hedgehog, the one from the timeline that was before Mr. Query screwed up everything, had the most dangerous and uncertain task of all: To find his past self and recruit him as an ally. The five Temporal Protectorate agents were far from ignorant of the modern day Shadow's plunge from his once firm pedestal of righteousness. Their Shadow went forward knowing full well the risk he took. In secret, Shadow and Pia had discussed the very real chance that Shadow would be unable to stop his past self without killing him. Jumping over a temporal distortion wave was one thing, but killing one's past self in person would undoubtedly result in the later version being erased from time immediately after the fact. There was no choice. If an evil Ultimate Life-Form was left run amok, then the world might face doom even if the Chaos Matron were defeated. 

- 

Ever since the Chaos Matron had learned how to govern the clouds above her, Central City had been covered in a dense layer of dark clouds stretching as far as the eye could see. It rained nearly non-stop, pausing only for a few hours when the clouds began to thin, then resuming soon enough. Chao love the water, and the Chaos Matron couldn't get enough of the rain. 

Flashes of lightning were a regular sight now, with the air pressures rising and falling irregularly due to the Fifth Stage chao's influence. 

Shadow the Hedgehog, back in his home away from home, found himself enjoying the remade scenery. The blood-red flames he found he could call forth with greater ease each time, warmed his body and kept his fur dry enough. Whether it was the power of the six Emeralds that did it, or because he was growing more accustomed to the aura of dark power, he wasn't sure. Didn't really care. 

The black hedgehog didn't notice at first that the skyscraper he'd Chaos Controlled on top of was the same one he'd stood atop when he realised his true identity. He stretched out his arms towards the horizon and laughed at length, ominously, yet happily. 

What a rush! Oh, he'd been so wrong about Sonic since the start. He'd thought the blue hedgehog was a reckless child with purpose of existence, who wasted away his life on endless pursuits that gained him nothing in return. But the thrill of never holding back, pitting his full self against everything that stood in his path, that was the only life worth living. Shadow felt a twinge of regret. If only he'd realised this truth while Sonic was still alive. He could've shown him! He could've killed Sonic himself!! Easily!! He was unstoppable - the true realisation of the Ultimate Life-Form!! Except- 

Shadow looked down at the city with contempt, focusing his gaze on the shimmering blue tower in the centre. 

Except for her... Once he destroyed the Chaos Matron, he would finally be the real ultimate - free to rule or destroy all of existence as he pleased. All he needed was the secret to her weakness and the last Chaos Emerald. 

"The Chaos Emerald..." Shadow said aloud. "That feeling..." 

He'd felt it the moment he arrived back in the city. At first he'd mistaken it for the essence of the Chaos he felt everywhere around him, but this was sharper, more solid. It was the Chaos Emerald. Shadow grinned wickedly. 

- 

_**Do you swear undying loyalty to me as your god and ruler?**_

Most of the assembled humans and animaloids sagged to their knees from the pain of the psychic shout. The Chaos Matron had no intention of bringing forth the citizens one by one. It would take ages. Instead, she ceremoniously called forth a dozen of them and asked each one the question, killed those who disagreed, and let the crowd watch. As she was growing bored, now seemed the right time to cut to the chase. 

"Bow before your ruler!" Jedo shouted above the cries of pain and submission. 

What a good idea, Veronica thought. Easier to tell which ones still need to be cut from the fabric of the new society by a show of who won't kiss the ground beneath my feet. She was so pleased with the new Jedo. He was going to make wonderful company in the decades to come before his weak animaloid body wore out. She'd have plenty of replacements ready by that time. 

All of them? Veronica felt surprised, but pleased. She'd only killed four more after the elephant, but clearly that was enough to make them all understand their new reality. Coddled children, they were. Raised in an age of far too many creature comforts. Everything was going to be better from now on. 

The heavy rain lessened to a comfortable shower in reflection of the Chaos Matron's mood. 

"Now," she said, "I will retire to my castle while my dear Jedo divides you all up into groups with fitting tasks. Make certain there are sufficient food-gatherers, Jedo. I feel in the mood for a celebratory feast tonight." 

"As you wish, O Chaos Matron," said Jedo, bowing deeply. 

The Chaos Matron chuckled, making a noise like bubbles. "Silly Jedo, you know you alone may call me Veronica. Titles belong in the mouths of these pheasants," she said, indicating the citizens of Central City lying on the wet ground. 

"My apologies. Veronica." 

The childhood and upbringing of Veronica Power had come into play now that her will alone controlled the awesome powers of her new body. The mind of the chao was now nothing more than a weak voice surrounded by easily-ignored emotions that were as faint echoes compared to her own. As a little girl, Veronica had been fascinated by stories of Medieval monarchy, of wise and mighty kings and queens ruling over petty stupid peasant folk who existed for nothing more than to serve and admire their lords. Veronica's idea of a new utopia was not a pleasant one for those who existed outside her sphere of approval. 

Who could ever know for sure if it was a suppressed evil alter-ego of the kind and generous tycoon who'd taken over, or whether this was the person Veronica had always been inside? One thing was certain: She felt far less remorse for killing all these people in her immortal form than she'd felt while she tortured Lillian the Echidna to the point of death as a mere mortal. 

- 

When Jedo was left alone in the open square outside the Chaos Matron's castle, two very different people both saw an opportunity before them. With just the currently-docile Chaos guards standing by, both the invisible agent Riven and the rapidly-approaching Shadow saw their chance to grab the Chaos Emerald from the possessed chameleon. 

Meanwhile, in the desert east of Central City, Eggman Nega was alarmed to find his surviving robot guards being decimated by an intruder who looked for all the world like Rouge the Bat. 

And much further away still, Terkal Jr. rolled his eyes and grunted in annoyance as he was forced to go fetch chao fruit from the kitchen in order to satisfy the secret weapon. 

- 

_To be Continued._


	36. Shades of Black Part Two

**Chapter 33: Shades of Black (Part Two)**

The massive hull of Eggman Nega's undersea fortress didn't have much time to dry in the desert sun before the dark clouds covering Central City spread their heavy showers even here. It was raining in the desert. It was literally pouring down! Normally that wouldn't have been a problem for the hijacked space station's sole human occupant, but due to the massive hole the evil Shadow had torn in the hull during his intimidation of Eggman Nega was causing water to leak into the circuitry of the station's walls. Nega was moments from giving his robot minions the order to abandon ship, as it were, when the bat intruder appeared and started systematically destroying the villainous scientist's best guards. 

Steaming in his ruined command centre, Nega reached for the nearby controls to activate the base's self-destruct mechanism. 

"Thank you for activating the emergency self-destruct sequence," said the pleasant-sounding voice of the base's computer. "You now have zero-minutes-and-fifty-nine-seconds to evacuate. This is not a drill." 

Even before the pleasant female voice was done speaking, Nega input the last few commands required to seal the blast doors everywhere in the base, effectively turning the place into an explosive tomb for the bat intruder. Nega was no fool. He would be very surprised if his foe was anyone but the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the government spy being impersonated. With that final villainous act, Eggman Nega bounced over to his stationary Negamobile, ready to make his escape through the great big hole Shadow had so conveniently carved in the wall. 

Nega's hands were actually on his hovercraft's controls when an alarm made him look up in distress. The powerful sensors installed in the fortress had detected a reaction of all seven Chaos Emeralds, AGAIN. If Shadow hadn't managed to dig up something useful where Nega's lies directed the evil hedgehog, then there was no doubt at all that the Ultimate Life-Form would be coming for the scientist very soon. 

What Nega didn't know was that the wild speculations he'd offered Shadow in order to get him off his back had been extremely close to the real truth. If not for a few twists of fate, Shadow might already have all the pieces in place. But as Nega did not know that, he immediately felt desperate. He needed leverage. 

Feeling a cold sweat, Eggman Nega looked at the security monitor showing the bat, then at the countdown timer, then at the big radar screen showing a bright spot where the Chaos Emerald reaction had happened. 

"Curse that hedgehog!" Eggman Nega shouted to no one in particular, before leaping out of his Negamobile and rushing over to the console. 

Typing fervently, watching the rapidly ticking timer out of the corner of his eyes, Nega input the override codes, managing to get the last one right with only seconds to spare. 

"The emergency self-destruct sequence has been cancelled at zero-minutes-and-four-seconds. Have a nice day." 

Eggman Nega breathed a sigh of relief. Now, to get his hostage. 

- 

Conquest had watched the blast doors slam shut and heard the computerised voice with a feeling of cold dread. She'd gotten herself trapped in a metallic hallway between two cargo areas. If she'd been really lucky, she would've found the same hallway where Silver, Blaze and the Nega Replicoids escaped through large holes in the hull, and been able to escape easily. No such luck, this place was sealed tight without as much as a crack in the paint. 

Why the countdown had stopped and the blast doors reopened, Conquest couldn't understand. Mercy seldom appeared in the doctor's list of qualities. 

It wasn't hard to guess why Conquest had come here. She still believed that Shadow was under the influence of Nega's vile program, and she was here to make the villain reverse his diabolical machinations whether he liked it or not. 

The bat ran forward, emerging into a vast and curiously empty room. There were no remains of the Nega Replicoids or the equipment and goods that'd been destroyed during the battle, as the nanites contained in the serpentine machines had rounded up every single usable scrap of debris and taken it with them when they went off in pursuit of Silver and Blaze. Conquest, being the most intelligent member of the team or good guys, figured out the above at first glance. She might have been absent during the entire Nega Replicoid crisis, but she'd caught up on every scrap of intelligence GUE could get its hands on during the aftermath. 

Conquest took a step forward, and was immediately thrown off her feet as a gigantic robot exploded out of the floor and stretched to its full massive size. Because the bat instinctively let her wings carry her, she was able to dodge the frantic first blow, costing the mechanical menace the advantage of surprise. 

Hovering just out of reach, Conquest appreciated the scale and impressiveness of the robot. It looked like a Nega Replicoid, except far bigger, big enough to house a Negamobile cockpit in its one oversized eye. Eggman Nega grinned at the bat through the thick armoured window. 

"Welcome Ex-Commander. Say hello to the Nega Replicoid MKII. This improved model may not be able to split into multiple copies, but it can repair any damage to its body in split seconds. Not even Blaze would be able to cut through this armour!" Eggman Nega boasted. 

"Good thing I'm not Blaze, then," Conquest responded. 

"What!? What kind of banter do you call that? Now stand still so I can crush you!" 

Conquest flew rapidly around the giant snake, effortlessly dodging acid splatters and machine gun fire. She'd watched enough combat footage of the Nega Replicoids to know their limitations. Nega only seemed to have raised the scale of this one rather than the combat efficiency. 

"Won't stand still, then? Good thing the MKII has a few brand new tricks up its sleeve. Get a load of this, bat girl!" 

With an excessive movement, Nega slammed his finger down on a certain button. The result wasn't immediately evident, until the Nega Replicoid MKII opened its maw unusually wide and released a piercing noise that hit Conquest like a wall of physical pain. 

"AIEEE!!" 

Momentarily stunned, Conquest couldn't prevent the giant cobra from slithering around her and wrapping the tiniest portion of its tail around her body tight. 

"YES!" Eggman Nega exclaimed. "Now when Shadow arrives he'll-" 

"I am here, Doctor." 

Both the bat and the scientist turned their heads towards the voice, and yes there he was. Shadow the Hedgehog, standing in his classic arms-crossed pose, apparently having been watching the whole fight play out before his eyes. But which Shadow was it? The one both spectators expected to see? 

"Ha-hah! Look, I've got your girlfriend, Shadow!" Nega called out, not quite able to hide his nervousness. "You'd better back off if you know what's good for her." 

"Hpmh!" said the black hedgehog simply, starting to stride casually towards the giant robot. 

"Shadow?" Conquest said, sounding as hopeful as she could be under the circumstances. 

"Sorry Connie. It was fun, but you're nothing but dead weight to me now," said Shadow, not even bothering to look at the bat. 

"You can't mean that!" It was Eggman Nega who said it, but Conquest felt the same way, rather more emotionally. "Do you think I'm joking, Shadow? If you come any closer, I swear I will crush her!" 

"Go ahead. All I need is a few more answers from you, Doctor. She's just in the way." 

Convinced that Shadow was bluffing, Nega had the Nega Replicoid MKII tighten its grip just enough. Maybe Shadow did falter slightly at the sound of his lover screaming, or maybe it was nothing but relief at overcoming yet another obstacle on the path to what the Ultimate Life-Form saw as true freedom. 

A massive blast rocked the giant robot, sending Eggman Nega tumbling along with the cockpit as it was forcefully detached from the robot as it broke along the middle. What was wrong with the picture was that Shadow was still several metres away from the machine when it happened. Or was he...? 

Shadow the Hedgehog effortlessly broke the last chains of the Replicoid's tail, freeing Conquest. 

"Another android, Eggman? You're so pathetically alike your ancestor," said the stationary Shadow to the upside-down Eggman Nega while his identical twin took care of Conquest. 

Conquest didn't understand what was going on, but she knew the touch of the Shadow before her. It was him. Before he could pull away, she hugged him tight. To her surprise, Shadow smiled kindly. "I've missed you," he said. "Now please stay back. This is going to be really dangerous." 

With those cryptic words, the second Shadow rushed towards his double. 

"So what is this, good twin?" the evil Shadow asked, scoffing. 

"Something like that." 

"And I suppose you want me to enslave myself to the pathetic cause of 'good' again, right?" 

"Not in those words, but yeah, that's the idea." 

"Pathetic." 

"Yes, you are." 

"What was that?" 

"I don't care if you do have all my memories. You're inexperienced, like a child. You may have seen what my life was like, but you haven't any idea what any of it meant. You're far more pathetic than even the lowliest mortal animaloid." 

"Hahahahahaaa!! You really believe that, don't you? You fool! You've never let yourself go as I have. You have no idea what this feels like. Nothing in your worthless lifetime can compare to even one second living as I am!" 

"Fine. If you won't realise the truth, then I'll have to show you what experience is worth." 

"A fight? Ahahahaha! Of course! Destroying you would be even sweeter than killing Sonic. And why not? I can have both! If you can travel trough time, so can I!" 

"Nice to see you using your brain for a change, but I'm afraid I can't allow that." 

"Who says you'll have a choice?" 

Both Shadows rushed at each other, there was a twin flash of Chaos Control, and they were gone. The battle had only just begun...

_To Be Continued._


	37. Shades of Black Part Three

**Chapter 34: Shades of Black (Last Part)**  
OR  
**The One Where Evil Shadow Fights His Alternate Reality Twin From The Future**  
OR  
**I Swear I've Never Even Seen DBZ**

Riven hit the concrete hard. That chameleon was a lot stronger than he looked. Through a haze of blood, the raven looked up to see the Chaos Matron's henchman storming towards him with two Chaos at his side. 

"My Chaos Emerald!" the chameleon was shouting. "Give back my Chaos Emerald!" 

Riven the Raven felt a witty slice of bravado coming on, but it was stopped by the pressing question of just where that Chaos Emerald was. Riven had made a grab for it, sure, but after that blinding green spark his hand passed through empty air, and he found himself completely visible at the middle of the Chaos Matron's fiercest minions. 

Jedo kicked the raven in the ribs several times, before planting his boot on the bird's throat, crushing his windpipe. 

Riven felt despair. Horrible pain, burning in his lungs, and despair. He knew there was no way any of his fellow agents could take the risk of coming to his rescue. Exposing themselves to the enemy at this point might doom their combined efforts to restore the future. 

Just as Riven began to lose consciousness, Jedo removed his boot. "Don't worry," said the villain. "You won't die just yet. First, the Chaos Matron can get a look at your mind. She's good at drenching for secrets. Believe me." 

The raven said a swearword. 

- 

The pumpkin-shaped mountains had a lot of history as one of the most documented haunted sites in the world. It was also the place where Knuckles the Echidna hunted for the pieces of the Master Emerald after the great gem was shattered for the second time, and where Shadow the Hedgehog made a death-defying chase across aerial rails in pursuit of the Tornado 3. 

It was a place the two Shadows knew well enough to be able to Chaos Control to easily. Why they chose that particular spot? Setting, obviously. With the stormy clouds from Central City causing massive downpour and regular flashes of lightning, the area was perfect for a climactic showdown. More important to the future Shadow was the fact that there wasn't a living soul for miles around who might get hurt in the crossfires. 

"Nice place to die," said the Dark Shadow, bathing himself in blood-red fire as he lowered his restraint once more. 

"Hmph!" said the Hero Shadow, igniting a gentle blue fire around his heroic form. 

That the two Shadows should draw out visible halos of energy was more a blessing for the audience of ghosts than it was for the fighters. At least this way it was possible to tell them apart when they clashed. 

They clashed. 

Leaping from opposite pumpkin hills, the two Shadows met in mid-air and locked in intense combat. The shock waves of their punches through the heavy rain was really impressive, and the flashes of Chaos energy rivalled the storm above. 

The two combatants should be evenly matched, but they weren't. Dark Shadow fought with greater ferocity than his twin was able to muster, but Hero Shadow's superior experience allowed him to counter his adversary's moves with sufficient skill to survive. They were both taking damage, and fast. As both were more concerned with using their jets as weapons rather than tools to defy gravity, it was a big question if they'd both be alive by the point they hit the bottom of the seemingly bottomless pit between the pumpkin hills. 

At the last second, both Shadows kicked off from the other, launching them back to the safety of the hills. But only the blue-lit Shadow landed. The other remained airborne, suspended by the exaggerated flames of his jet sneakers. 

"Nice little game," said the villainous one. "But you should know that you'd already lost when you challenged me." 

"Is that so?" 

"Can't you feel them? I have all seven Chaos Emeralds! All I need to do is channel their combined power, and I'll be invincible." 

"Then why wait?" Hero Shadow asked callously. 

"Because I wanted to use their power against the Chaos Matron, not you. But given the circumstances, I think it'll be worth another fetch-quest around the world to be able to crush you like the pathetic bug that you are." 

"You really do overuse that word, Shadow," said Shadow. 

"Maybe so. I prefer action over words in any case." 

Dark Shadow flung out his arms, as all seven Chaos Emeralds materialised in the air around him, one by one. The hero didn't move, even as the Emeralds started spinning faster and glowing brighter around the evil twin. Just as it seemed to late, Hero Shadow activated Chaos Control with a wide gesture, teleporting to within the circle of Chaos Emeralds. The evil Shadow's look of surprise in the last split second before the Emerald power was released was priceless. 

As one might have expected, the Shadow who called out the Emeralds' power with hatred and malice took on rather different form than the do-gooder Super Shadow. 

"Different," said the Dark Super Shadow. "How do I look?" 

"Eerie," Super Shadow answered. "How is your sight?" 

"I can see everything, why?" 

"No pupils." 

"That is eerie. Hmmm..." the hedgehog silhouette of black flame smiled, though it was impossible to tell with his muzzle coloured as dark as his spines. "I like this." 

With that, the supervillain charged at the superhero. The explosive energy of two oppositely charged Super forms was so violent that it was both visible and audible from Central City and Eggman's desert-stranded undersea fortress. 

- 

"Something interesting is happening," said the Chaos Matron, dropping the raven's lifeless body to the floor of her throne room. "Let's go take a look, Jedo." 

"As you wish, Veronica." 

- 

"What's going to happen?" Conquest asked, looking over Eggman Nega's shoulder as they both watched the great big screen in Nega's command room. 

"They'll probably destroy each other. Better that way." 

Furious, Conquest grabbed the scientist's moustache and dragged his face close enough for eye contact. "No, it's not!" she hissed. 

"What other way is there? Ow! If the future Shadow kills his past self, then they'll both be erased, and if the present Shadow wins we'll have _two_ insanely overpowered monsters to deal with!" 

"No, there is a way," said Conquest, looking determined. "Can you broadcast the signal based on Gerald's original programming a second time?" 

"What good will that do? He got his memories back on his own, and it drove him crazy! Argh, why do all my plans always turn out this way!? Let go already!" 

The bat finally did so. Nega rubbed his poor aching trademark. It should be obvious by this point that the hostage in this situation was not Conquest the Bat, but her would-be captor. With his robot army crippled and the Nega Replicoid MKII destroyed, the criminal mastermind had nothing left to prove a match against a very angry bat with a very powerful combat suit. 

"This time we'll get it right. I think I understand it all now. You said that other Shadow is likely from the same future as that raccoon you told me about. I think what was supposed to happen was that someone else helped Shadow recover his identity rather than letting him work it out by himself. That someone should be me." 

"Sentimental nonsense, but it might actually work." 

"Then do it, Nega!" 

"That is to say, it might actually work if I had a way to broadcast sound all the way to Pumpkin Valley." 

"Damn! Does your hovercraft still work?" 

"What!? You're not taking my pride and joy!" Eggman Nega exclaimed, turning red. 

Too angry and impatient to take account of differences in size and weight, Conquest lifted Nega up by his collar and growled "I wasn't asking!" Her arm was going to ache like the dickens once she calmed down enough to be bothered by simple physics. 

- 

Silver, Blaze and Buta were keeping themselves busy. 

"I've had enough excitement for one month. Do we really have to go through all that just to earn their trust?" Silver asked. 

"Certainly. If we cannot offer them our respect, we surely do not deserve their assistance in the battle to come," Buta answered. "The life of the Flicky we are to rescue is of no less importance than any of those suffering under the rule of the Chaos Matron." 

"Come on, Silver. What's one more obstacle course through an active volcano?" said Blaze, evidently enjoying herself. 

"I really don't like lava, okay? I'm just saying that the Chief had better be satisfied after this...what are we at now?" 

"This would be the fourteenth trial," said Buta. 

- 

The last pumpkin hill tumbled into the abyss. If the Super Shadows had attempted this battle over Central City there wouldn't be much left of the metropolis by now. As it were, the ghostly population were finding themselves without a place to haunt. The ghosts were also discovering, to their alarm, that Chaos Emerald energy could definitely harm supernatural entities. 

Super Shadow stopped for a moment to catch his breath. His enemy didn't yet look tired in the slightest. The odds were still uneven. The hero Shadow knew from experience that the negative energies of the Emeralds provided significantly greater power than the positive side, with the added risk that the negative energy corrupted the mind of the vessel instead of amplifying it like the positive energies did. There was a reason why Super Sonic had to rely on his ability to _dodge_ attacks to survive the battle against Perfect Chaos. 

"What's the matter? Getting tired? I could go on all day!" Dark Super Shadow taunted. 

"Why..." 

"Why what? Trying to give me your epitaph? I've already got one for you. 'Shadow the Hedgehog, weak and unworthy of the title Ultimate Life-Form'. Apt, wouldn't you say?" 

"Why are you still holding back?" 

The supervillain narrowed his eyes. "What!?" 

"Look at your wrists." 

Shadow did so. What was he talking about, there was just his plain old bracelets. His- The memory came to him in a flash of horror: The energy containment bracelets that Prof. Gerald created to prevent his creation from unleashing its true potential. He-he still wasn't free! They were chains! Why hadn't he felt it before, how they sucked the energy out of him, keeping him in check against his will! 

Trembling, the Dark Super Shadow removed his bracelets. Anyone who knew just how much more destructive power the Ultimate Life-Form could release without those devices might wonder if the future Shadow had lost his mind. But the hero had a plan. Right now he was pouring every ounce of energy he had towards amplifying the energy shield provided by his Super form. 

"Sorry Connie," Super Shadow said out loud. "This is the only way." 

- 

The Negamobile was badly damaged from the recent battles. Its engine kept making complaining noises as Conquest pushed the machine past its limits, racing against inevitability. The Super-form battle was impossible to miss. Shielding her eyes, Conquest drove straight towards the light show. 

- 

"Ahhhh! AHHHHHAAHAHAHAAA!! This...is...incredible!!" Dark Super Shadow laughed, his eyes open wide, and his breath heavy. "I could- I could do anything!! Destroy all of the Chaos Matron's servants, then herself. Yes, I could do it!! I am the secret to ultimate victory! I am! I AM UNSTOPPABLE!!!" 

The horror escalated. The black aura of the evil Super form expanded, arcs of energy reminiscent of Chaos Spears circled like satellites around the single glowing hedgehog form in the centre of it all. The evil hedgehog was lost now. He'd been drunk on power before, but now he was completely absorbed. As the future Shadow expected, the dark Shadow didn't even realise that he was turning himself into a single explosive force coming ever closer to disastrous detonation. Super Shadow wasn't amplifying his shield in order to save himself. He was doing it to contain the inevitable destruction that would kill them both.

- 

"Oh dear. That looks dangerous," said the Chaos Matron, watching the growing energy bubble from afar. 

She was flying high above Central City, with Jedo close by on an overpowered hoverbike. 

"What is happening, Lady Veronica?" Jedo asked. 

"That hedgehog is channeling the sum total negative energy of all seven Chaos Emeralds into physical space. What is most interesting is that the energy is straining like a rubber band. Momentarily, the backlash will kill the hedgehog and release explosive power far surpassing the most powerful bomb in existence." 

"Should we retreat?" 

"No, I don't think that will be necessary. That other hedgehog is attempting to contain the blast. I believe we should stay here and watch the spectacle. It is no threat to me. As for you...well, I do hope you survive. If not, it will be an unprecedented final sight, at least." 

"Very well, Veronica." 

Self-preservation was the first aspect of Jedo's mind that had to be killed to make him a perfect slave. The chameleon's will to survive had been exceptional by any standards - suggesting that he would sacrifice anyone and anything to escape danger alive. Not a good quality in a servant. 

- 

The Negamobile flew right into the energy bubble, narrowly avoiding the deadly Chaos blasts. Against the noise of the sheer force being built, it was impossible for any naked ear to hear the high-pitched noise being emitted from the Negamobile's speakers at full blast. 

"No!" Super Shadow shouted. 

The scene was so spectacular you'd need fantastic 3D technology and a whopping huge budget to show it in proper detail. Super Shadow flying into the bubble of energy. Conquest being thrown clear as the Negamobile exploded in a huge explosion that was coloured bizarrely and impressively within the bubble. The silhouette of the Dark Super Shadow clutching his ears and screaming out silently. The energy bubble disrupting and beginning to break into separate explosions of coloured energy. Super Shadow bursting free of the collapsing bubble with Conquest in his arms. The very air around the collapsing bubble crackling with energy, and the rain evaporating instantly for miles around. Finally, a de-powered unconscious Shadow falling like a rag doll to the ground, as the unnaturally interrupted rain resumes. 

Super Shadow doubled back and caught his past self right at the last second, then flew off at super speed with Conquest hanging on tight and past Shadow held safely above the abyss. Everybody survived. Roll credits. 

...except that the ending is still way off. No credits, then. 

- 

The Chaos Matron smiled. 

"What a wonderful show," she mused. "Looks like we've got a busy time ahead of us, Jedo. Time travellers to root out and kill, a pair of Ultimate Life-Forms to correct, and oh what ever did become of Silver and Blaze? Wouldn't be like them to die without a proper noticeable spectacle." 

"What about the Chaos Emeralds?" Jedo asked, true to his character even after so much possession. 

"Ah yes, ever the wild cards. They can never be trusted to stay put. I suppose we'll have to destroy them once their current owners are dead." 

"Destroy?" 

"If it is possible. We could try storing them in a rocket and launching it into the sun. If they can survive even that, then they should at least be well beyond the reach of anyone wanting to cause us trouble." 

The Chaos Matron wasn't considering the very real possibility that throwing all seven Emeralds into the sun might trigger a supernova that would utterly destroy Earth and the surrounding planets. But hey, what's a cataclysm without the risk of doomsday? 

- 

"I hate lava!" Silver shouted, catching himself with his psychokinesis before he dropped into the deadly red pool. 

- 

_End of Chapter 34._


	38. The Secret Weapon

**Chapter 35: The Secret Weapon**

The secret hideout of the Temporal Protectorate agents was located in a cave deep within the forests of Nostalgia Island. The island was aptly named. Due to an oddity of continental shifts, an island had arisen in the sea south-east of Central City that displayed the exact same soil and terrain as the Green Hills region of South Island. The island would likely have been given a different name if had been properly mapped by civil cartographers before years after Sonic's world-famous adventure on South Island. With the cave mouth being located halfway up a sheer chequered cliff it was inaccessible to most without futuristic suits designed to allow the wearer to shift through time and space at will. 

The interior of the cave was actually quite nice. None of the Chaos-creatures patrolling Central City had paid any mind to a lot of comfy furniture disappearing from various stores around the city. Pia arrived back at the hideout to find Terkal Jr. snoring loudly in a very expensive-looking leather armchair. The secret weapon was sitting on the floor, playing with some toys they'd picked up to keep it happy. 

Pia opened her mouth to yell, but changed her mind. She didn't have the energy left, and there was no point in upsetting the secret weapon either. Instead, she shook the young echidna awake by grabbing his shoulder. 

Because she could tell the flustered boy was gearing up to produce a string of wild excuses as to why he'd fallen asleep on the job, Pia made sure to speak first. "Riven is dead. The Chaos Matron knows about us." 

Terkal went from sleepy annoyance to full sober consciousness in an instant. Whatever he was about to say died in his throat. Like his father, he'd never been any good at dealing with serious emotional business. It wasn't necessary for him to say anything. Pia knew that the smarmy raven had been the only member of the team that Terkal would publicly call friend. The two of them went a long way back. 

As a saving gesture, Pia looked away from Terkal's face and kept talking. 

"It's been an hour since Riven's com line went dead. The last audible transmission was the voice of that monster. I know Riven would never give away anything about us no matter what she did to him, but Shadow is the only one of us who would have even a chance to resist the Matron's powers. I've called for a rendezvous in ten minutes. We'll have to relocate as soon as possible, and rework our strategy from here on." 

Pia didn't mention that Riven wasn't the only one whose line had gone dead. The same had happened with Shadow. But Shadow had escaped life-threatening peril far more often than anyone in history, except maybe Sonic himself. Pia knew that the most likely scenario was that Shadow had ignored her advice and gone ahead with his plan of using the Chaos Emeralds' power to destroy both his evil doppelgänger and himself. Still, she had to hope. The secret weapon wouldn't help unless they had someone strong enough to protect the team until they could unleash its power. 

Not a word was spoken until Jennifer arrived. The strong human woman took the news no better than Terkal, but neither lapsed into silence or let her emotions get in the way of discussing the mission ahead. Pia explained what she knew, having to try harder to avoid letting too much details slip about Shadow's assignment. While she talked, her thoughts slipped back to the experience that from her perspective had happened over a year ago. When she and Silver went Super, her Jumpsuit was destroyed. The silence from Shadow only meant that he'd used the Chaos Emeralds, not that he'd died. There was still a chance... 

Just then an unnaturally bright light shone from the cavern mouth, bathing the rocky recesses within in golden glow. Pia felt a painful sensation. She'd just pinched herself, but doing so didn't affect the miracle taking place before her eyes. Both Terkal and Jennifer stared with their mouths hanging open. Pia remembered that neither of them had ever seen a Super form before. 

The awe-inspiring sight meant that it took a little too long before any of the time-travellers noticed that Shadow wasn't alone. Conquest jumped down to the rocky floor while Super Shadow carefully put down his unconscious twin. 

"Aunt Connie?" said Pia aloud without thinking. 

Super Shadow nodded to the bat, who quickly dragged the defeated Shadow to the side while Super Shadow mentally prepared himself for an extremely difficult feat. Normally using the full power of the Chaos Emeralds meant that the precious gems would reform randomly around the world immediately after the user reverted to normal. To summon the Emeralds back into physical form without triggering that natural response was nearly impossible. The first, the only person, who'd ever achieved the skill easily had been Sonic the Hedgehog, who let the Emeralds scatter more for the sake of keeping them safe than because he didn't have a choice. No matter how much more powerful Shadow became, he never seemed to achieve the knack that Sonic had. Maybe it was because Sonic had always let the power of the Chaos Emeralds flow naturally through him, while Shadow's unique physical structure seized the power forcefully and channelled it without control, forcing the black hedgehog to wear Gerald's bracelets at all times simply in order to balance the power. Gritting his teeth, grunting with effort, Shadow forced the energies of the Chaos Emeralds to leave his body and reform around him. Those watching could see that Shadow was trembling with the effort of it while the Emeralds appeared in the air around him, one by one, each appearance causing the glow of his fur to fade slightly more. 

Long ago, when Metal Mastermind demanded the Chaos Emeralds from Super Shadow, the act of surrendering the gems had taken as much of a physical toll on Shadow as it had on his emotional state. 

Finally, the seventh Chaos Emerald fell to the floor. Panting, Shadow finally managed to utter "Mission accomplished." 

"Well done," was all Pia could think to say. 

There were too many questions to decide what to say next. What had happened? How did he get the seventh Chaos Emerald? Did he know anything about Riven? Was the other Shadow alright? Why was Aunt Connie wearing a Rouge the Bat costume? 

- 

See Silver's boots: Droplets of hardened lava proving the highly impressive workmanship of the hero's footwear.  
See Silver's fur: Green grass stains and patches of fried hair testifying to the ordeal he'd just gone through.  
See Silver's gloves: The patterns still glowing with psychokinetic energy from the spectacular feats of power he'd displayed.  
See Silver's face: Serious, tired but proud.  
See over a thousand Flickies hovering in the air above the hedgehog, watching the scene with interest and excitement. 

The Flicky Chief finally made up his mind. "Very well. Our tribe will aid you in your battle against the evil chao you speak of." 

See Blaze looking fine as ever, without as much as a spot on her clothes. The cat smiled. Whether it was fate or comic relief, nearly all of the perils and pitfalls of Flickies Island had met Silver while avoiding her. 

- 

Between Pia, Jennifer, Shadow, Terkal and Conquest there was a lot of exposition to be shared. Before the heroes could get to that, however, the bat took one look at the secret weapon and just had to ask: 

"Is that Cheese?" 

"That's right," said Shadow. "We saved him while raiding Prower Tower before the Chaos Matron transformed the place into her own twisted likeness." 

"But why hasn't he been changed?" Conquest wondered. "He looks just like a normal chao." 

"Because," said Pia, "this chao alone of all chao in the world, is immune to the effect of the Chao Cataclysm. That makes him our secret weapon to put an end to this mess and get the timeline back on the right track." 

"How?" Conquest asked. 

Jennifer, the history buff of the group, said "Cheese the Chao was the birth of Veronica Prower's Project Succession. A sample of chao substance from Cheese was what made her insane plan possible in the first place. Look at him. Do you see any animal traits at all? Wings? A tail? Flippers? Claws? Anything? Cheese is an anomaly. His biological structure is inherently flawed, but that flaw makes him all the more special. Did you know why Cream the Rabbit picked that specific chao to keep as her lifelong friend? Because she felt sorry for him. The chao breeder that oversaw the birth of Cheese saw the chao as a worthless freak with no merit to raise or breed from. The breeder voiced those very sentiments when the Rabbit family came to visit her chao garden to find a pet, and so for that exact reason Cream picked Cheese." 

"You mean..." 

"Cheese can't absorb traits. He (or she if you like), is the ultimate neutral chao. His biology allowed Veronica to begin work on a means to make all chao in existence the same. We can use his biology to reverse the process." 

"My own assignment," said Pia, "was to infiltrate the peak of the Chaos Matron's tower in order to confirm that the machine she used to generate the Chao Cataclysm is still intact. It's there. I've seen it. If, somehow, we could get the machine working again with all seven Chaos Emeralds and then this time put Cheese inside as the origin point, we could create something like an Anti-Chao Cataclysm." 

"That's...brilliant," Conquest admitted. "I thought all that was necessary was to destroy the Chaos Matron in order to put everything right." 

"So did we, at first," said Shadow, "but the truth is that she is just taking advantage of all the Chaos, to boost her own power. Destroying her would just free the Chaos from her control. It would do nothing to return them to normal." 

A fact that an omniscient overseer might take as indication that Buta was either wrong or he was lying when he suggested that destroying the Chaos Matron would suffice to undo the Change, as he called it. Indeed, as the chao so often said, his loyalty lay with his own kind first. 

"The problem is keeping the Chaos Matron and her underlings away long enough to activate the machine. We're incredibly lucky that she...killed Riven before learning about our plan, or she would probably have destroyed the machine herself by now." 

"Who's Riven?" 

The expressions of the group told Conquest that it wasn't a tactful question to ask. 

- 

There were still plenty of pools of water within Eggman Nega's fortress, due to the floods caused by the good guys and the destructive Nega Replicoids. The severely beaten and now robbed Nega couldn't believe his horrible luck when his security sensors suddenly displayed the appearance of not only his two worst enemies, but a bizarre chao creature and innumerable Flickies. 

Somehow the doctor's lot in life had become to serve as an information source for any number of heroes and villains. Silver and Blaze's justification for getting Buta to send them all here was because Nega would be the one most likely to know where to start looking for Shadow and the seven Chaos Emeralds. With far too many aggressive Flickies on their side, Silver and Blaze's subsequent interrogation of Eggman Nega resembled something out Alfred Hitchcock. 

Ten minutes later, following Nega's desperate ideas as to which direction his surveillance drones had shown the victorious Super Shadow fly off, Silver's party emerged from the waves on the beaches of Nostalgia Island. 

Very soon all the heroes would stand united, and the final battle would begin... 

- 

_End of Chapter 35._


	39. Setting the Bait

**Chapter 36: Setting the Bait**

The Chaos Matron was deep in thought. Although her kids were playing loudly on the floor of the throne room, enjoying the new toys she'd created for them, Veronica's mind was too hard at work to be distracted easily. She was worried about the time travellers. She could squash them like bugs, but only if she could catch them. As long as they remained at large they were just as much of a risk as Mr. Query had been. If that damn raccoon could change history to his liking, then so could they. She'd seen in the secret depths of the raven Riven that his allies were preparing some sort of secret weapon. If only the wretch had stayed alive long enough to surrender more details. 

She didn't quite understand why the time travellers hadn't simply gone back in time and upset the chain of events that led to her rebirth as the Chaos Matron. The image of the raccoon in Riven's mind had been that of an enemy, and he called him "Pretorious". Were the temporal interlopers so afraid of their masked enemy's power that they didn't dare interfere at a point in time when he'd still be alive and free to fight back? Perhaps. Certainly, Mr. Query had failed only one step short of achieving his ultimate goal of destroying the future generation forever. If that monster had done the unthinkable to her children, then yes, Veronica's revenge would've meant doom for all man and animaloid kind. Such a waste it would've been. Better that the people of the world be spared to live in fear and harmony under her eternal rule. 

"Wee!" the fox children shouted, riding on the back of the Chaos that their mother had moulded into the shape of a pony. 

The Chaos Matron examined her fingernails. Flakes of ice floating upon the tips of five digits formed of blue liquid. During the week she spent growing accustomed to her new body, Veronica had tried all manner of dresses and outfits, none of which would remain on her person without dissolving within a day. She knew she was beautiful, an opinion reflected in the thousands of mirrors merged into the walls of her royal domain, but she was getting fed up with being naked all the time. That was a frustration that the near-silent chao part of her couldn't comprehend. The term 'naked' was meaningless to a chao. 

"Go horsey!" The kids again. 

Perhaps the fact that the Chaos Matron was not quite anatomically correct might lessen Veronica's dismay about her exposure, but frankly that was a whole different source of ennui. She could easily correct the anatomical inaccuracy of her body, of course, but due to common decency she wasn't even going to try until she found a solution to the whole nudity problem. Her breasts and groin would remain bare and featureless until she found a way to cover them up. Maybe she was a megalomaniacal mass-murderer, but she was certainly no exhibitionist. 

Being an omnipotent elemental goddess wasn't all fun and games. 

"Jedo!" 

A waterfall shaped like a door parted to let the chameleon through. "How many I serve you, Veronica?" he asked on cue. 

"Lend me your thoughts," said the Chaos Matron. "How can I draw my enemies out of hiding without exposing myself too greatly to whatever secret weapon they aim to use against me?" 

"Bait them out," Jedo suggested after a moment's thought. "All you need is the right hostage." 

The Chaos Matron grumbled, producing a sound like fiercely boiling water. "That raven again. Why did it have to die so easily?" 

"Animaloids are often fragile," said Jedo indifferently. 

"And humans moreso..." 

The crack in the chao-fox goddess's muzzle extended into a wicked smirk. "Yes, very fragile, indeed," she mused. "Jedo, my darling, you've given me a wonderful idea." 

"I am pleased to inspire, Veronica," he responded obediently. 

"Are my people still gathered outside?" 

"Yes. We have not yet given the Chaos guards the go-ahead to let them leave the banquet. Most of the peasants are still feasting. It would appear that starvation was beginning to occur in several parts of the city." 

The Chaos Matron laughed. "Ah, modern people. So pathetically helpless without their technical aids. They cannot even feed themselves without being spoon-fed by the society they fester upon." 

So stated the woman born and raised in over-abundant wealth. If Jedo had a comment on that one, he wasn't going to say it. 

"Have them stay put. I will need all of them soon. But before that, find me a technical genius. I'd like to broadcast a message across the internet, the telenet, and whatever other mediums are still functioning. My enemies deserve a formal invitation." 

- 

Less than ten minutes after Silver, Blaze, Buta and the Flickies arrived on Nostalgia Island, the party met the leader of the Temporal Protectorate squad. The sound of a thousand Flickies is really hard not to notice, and Shadow could certainly recognise the energy of a Fifth Stage Chao, even from across the island. So after a quick debate, Shadow Chaos Controlled himself and Pia down to the shore, very close to Silver and company's position. 

"Oh good, the black hedgehog has had a change of heart. Here he comes now," said Buta out of the blue, a good minute before Shadow and Pia stepped out of the jungle to meet the others on the beach. 

The meeting was something to be remembered: 

"Pia!? Shadow?" Silver exclaimed. 

"Hi Dad," said Pia casually, but then rather more awkwardly continued with "Er...hi Mom." 

And so it happened that for the first time in her life history, Blaze was utterly speechless. Silver cleared his throat. 

"You, uh, look well. You've grown." 

"Well it has been over a year since that mess with Pretorious and the predestination thing," said Pia calmly. 

It was true. You couldn't see it unless they were standing next to each other, but Pia was now taller than Silver. Her hair seemed a bit longer as well. Her body had matured as well, but no more than that you wouldn't notice without a close examination of a Before/After image. It was quite unlike Silver, who wouldn't look a day older than a teenager until he rounded thirty. 

"Oh, I get. Well, it's only been a month or so here. So, heh, you got Shadow back to normal, huh?" 

Shadow smiled, but didn't say anything. 

"Not quite. You don't need to worry about your Shadow anymore, but that was thanks to aunt Co- thanks to Conquest, not me. As for this person, allow me to introduce Shadow the Hedgehog, newest full agent of the Temporal Protectorate." 

"So you're Shadow from Pia's time? Wow, this must be really weird to you." 

Shadow chuckled. "You have no idea, Silver. At least I don't have to salute you yet." 

"Huh? Oh, right. Yeah, I remember. Pretorious said I'm gonna end up as the leader of your organisation. Now that's weird." 

"She looks a bit like me..." 

It was Blaze who'd spoken. Silver, who'd known her practically his whole life, had never heard her voice like that before. 

"You should see her face when she gets mad at me. It's like you're twins." 

Both Pia and Blaze gave Silver a look like they wanted to roll their eyes but chose not to. It was uncanny. 

"We shouldn't stay out in the open too long," said Shadow. "I'll teleport us all back to the hideout so you three can meet the rest of the team." 

"I was wondering when I would be acknowledged," said Buta. 

"Wha-? What are you?" said Pia, noticing Buta for the first time. 

"You're only a god-like convergence of chao sentience and power, Buta," said Silver. "My daughter and friend from the future ranks just slightly higher on the center-of-attention scale." 

Buta laughed pleasantly. 

"Let's go." 

"What about the Flickies?" 

"The cave isn't that big. They can wait outside. There's plenty of fruits and bugs around here." 

"Ah, much obliged, dear fellow," said a surprisingly articulate Flicky. As most of the birds couldn't speak, it was very surprising indeed. 

- 

"Would you share your intentions with me, Lady Veronica?" Jedo asked as he and his mistress descended through the tower. 

"I'm going to kill them all a few at a time until the time travellers show up," said the Chaos Matron in a relaxed voice. "Then I'm going to suspend all the survivors in the sky above the city while I destroy the vile soldiers from the future. If they try to use their special weapon against me, then the populace of Central City dies with me." 

"What if you win?" 

"Then I shall spare my loyal subjects, of course. Relocating the citizens of the other cities will take such a tedious amount of time, and I'd hate to have to move my lovely palace." 

"Your benevolence is great, O Veronica." 

"Yes, I know, Jedo." 

- 

_End of Chapter 36._


	40. The Final Act Part One

**Chapter 37: The Final Act (Part One)**

_Static, then gradually the picture comes into view. A pair of feet shaped out of gelatinous blue substance hold the spotlight.  
_

_  
"-and that's all it takes?" A female voice with a strange echo to it is heard.  
_

_  
"So it would seem," a rugged male voice responds. "As long as the recording is broadcast along the same line as before, the news people will certainly intercept it. There, I've set it to loop the recording continuously once the message is complete. You may begin, Lady Veronica."  
_

_  
The image is lifted up until the face of the Chaos Matron fills the screen. Then, zoom back to see that the self-proclaimed queen is standing in the middle of an empty street, with a building composed of flowing water clearly visible behind her. Rather more distressing is the sight of three humans and two animaloids hanging in the air above the gelatinous winged woman, all of them clearly in agony yet unable to utter a sound.  
_

_  
"Pia, Terkal, Jennifer, and Shadow," says the Chaos Matron, reciting each name very slowly for maximum effect. "This is on your heads."  
_

_  
The human on the far left explodes, releasing a gruesome shower of blood and guts. The pause before the next victim suffers the same fate is just long enough for her to take in the full horror. By the fifth death, the camera focuses once again on the face of the Chaos Matron. The sight of her is even more terrifying, now that the sprayed blood of her victims mingles with the blue liquid of her body.  
_

_  
"In one hour, another ten dear citizens of Central City will perish because of you. Then twenty, then forty, then eighty, and so on. I do not wish to lose my beloved followers, but it is a necessary tragedy for the noble cause of bringing rebels such as you out of your holes. The destiny of eternal peace and harmony can never come to pass while there are still those who would seek to destroy me. Now...watch the flight of angels!"  
_

_  
The Chaos Matron gestures to something off-screen. The camera moves sharply to the left, revealing a square packed tightly with tens of thousands of people. Suffering. All as one, they're being lifted into the air by an invisible force, clearly feeling the sensation as unbearably unpleasant. Unlike the first five victims, these people are allowed to scream, and they do.  
_

_  
"I understand that you rebels call my immortality into question. Allow me to test your faith. If I should fall...so do they, and no one will ever catch them. Try to destroy me, and they die. Fail to answer my call, and they die. Surrender yourself to my will, and they survive. Live with bloodied hands, or die with honour. Your choice. I eagerly await your reply."  
_

_  
"End it now?"  
_

_  
"Yes, that will do, Jedo."  
_

_  
The image fades to static once more._

- 

Given the quality of the furniture installed in the cave hideout, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the least rugged wall sported a top-of-the-line poster-screen liquid display TV. Terkal Jr. had left the set running while he was trying to stay awake during guard duty. As already known, he'd failed, but with the grim news Pia had to deliver and the following series of startling events featuring Shadow and assorted other newcomers, no one had thought to turn the TV off. Still, Buta, who was seeing a TV for the second time in his life, was the only one who noticed the footage being displayed onscreen. The chao didn't waste time drawing the attention of everyone else towards it. They watched the news report all the way through, including the transmission sent by cell phone camera from the heart of Central City. Naturally the graphic deaths were filtered, but that did nothing to diminish the reaction of those watching, especially since the Chaos Matron had called half of them by name before murdering those innocent people. 

"Damn," said Pia after turning the TV off. She was obviously shaken, but kept her voice as stable as she could. "I was hoping we'd have more time to prepare. The news anchor said they recieved that transmission fifteen minutes ago. That means we have less than forty-five minutes to confront that liquid-" She said a very nasty string of swearwords, but given the circumstances nobody could blame her. "-before she kills again. No time for debate. Let's just decide right now who's going to come and who's going to stay." 

"Like there's a choice," said Terkal Jr. "We have to come. She said our names. Riven must've told her, or she brain-washed him or whatever. She's gotta know that we're time travellers. It has to be the reason why she's so freaked out about us, right? Unless all four of us come, she might kill all those people out of spite. 'sides, we've got Shadow and all the Chaos Emeralds with us. We can take her, right? Right?" 

"Terk is right," said Jennifer, looking more brave than she felt. 

"Are you sure?" Pia asked her. "You know the Chaos Emeralds won't protect you." 

"Because I'm human, I know. Look, even if it's certain death to go, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I stayed knowing that my absence would put thousands of people in jeopardy." 

"I understand," said Pia. "Shadow?" 

The black hedgehog shook his head. "You don't need to ask me," he said. "As long as Connie stays here with the other me, I'll bring everything I've got to this fight." 

It might surprise those who knew her that Conquest didn't object. Silver, who thought he knew her pretty well, certainly was surprised. Shadow, who knew her better than anyone, was not. 

"Dad? Mom?" Pia knew she didn't need to repeat the question. 

"I beat Metal Sonic and Pretorious. How tough can she possibly be? I'm in," said Silver. "Besides, I definitely didn't go through hell on Flickies Island to back down now!" 

"The Chaos Matron has to be stopped," said Blaze, which apparently was all there was to it as far as she was concerned. 

"Buta...was it?" Pia said to the last and most unique member of the group. 

"I don't like these nicknames. The voice from the television machine said her name was Veronica. As for the question of my participation in the approaching confrontation, you can rest assured that I will do all that is necessary for the sake of my kind. The chao will be free from the despicable control of this Veronica. Her actions have proven beyond any doubt that she is no chao at all. Although I could never murder another chao, to kill her would be an entirely different act." 

"Then I guess we're all in this together. Come on, we still have some time. Let's plan out exactly how we're going to pull this off..." 

- 

Veronica was normally a patient person, but right now she was feeling incredibly restless. 

"How long has it been?" she asked. 

Jedo looked around for a moment, then picked up a discarded wristwatch, wiped the blood off the front, and declared it to be fifty-five minutes since the first demonstration. 

"Long enough." 

The Chaos Matron strode forward, keeping her gaze high. The hostages were clustered in a gigantic sphere of living, agonising people, floating just high enough above the ground to make the fall a fatal one. 

"Cowardly time travellers. Should I let them drop for your sake, or pop them like bubbles? Maybe a little bit of both?" 

"STOP!" 

Pia, Jennifer, Terkal and Shadow stood side-by-side at the back of the Chao Memorial Garden, directly across from the former Prower Tower. The statue of Sonic the Hedgehog was visible through the glass behind the four Temporal Protectorate agents. There was probably some symbolic significance there. 

The Chaos Matron glared ahead. She stormed towards the quartet, not noticing the movements in the

"Your deaths will so satisfying..." The Chaos Matron sneered, momentarily losing what little normality she tried to retain in her voice. 

"Hold it right there, monster!" 

The Chaos Matron turned her neck an unnatural 180 degrees. Who dared to intrude on this moment of victory? 

"Oh...it's you," she said with annoyance. "I'll give you yours in a minute, Silver. But first there are more important-" 

She felt a spark too powerful to ignore. This time she turned around all the way, giving Silver her full attention. 

"So...you have the seven Chaos Emeralds. Was...ahahahaaa!! Was that the secret weapon all along? HAHAHAHAA!!" The Chaos Matron laughed with relief. "Those gems could never destroy me. Dissolve this body, perhaps, but what of it? I'd merely inhabit another Chaos and then carry on the fight with my strength fully renewed. Is that what you're planning? It is, isn't it? Go ahead! TRY! Destroy me once, shame on you, destroy me twice - you'll never get the chance!" 

Overconfidence really sapped that mind-reading talent, Silver figured. Just like how Buta had so miserably failed to gauge his abilities when he tried to control the Super-Dark Chaos the first time. She was in for a surprise. 

The seven Chaos Emeralds materialised around Silver and began their customary spinning cycle, accelerating as they lost their physical form and were transformed into pure energy to be absorbed by the user. Super Silver was born with a flash, glowing with incredible power. 

"Oh, bravo!" said the Chaos Matron. "What now?" 

"That's the magic word," said Super Silver. 

"Hmmm?" 

"NOW!" the glowing hedgehog shouted. 

Two events happened simultaneously. First, the pool surrounding the tower exploded forth with thousands of Super-empowered Flickies taking to the air, and immediately taking aim at the multitude of Chaos-creatures posted as guards around the surrounding area. Secondly, Pia, Jennifer and Terkal Jr. activated the cloaking devices of their Jumpsuits, while Shadow shouted "CHAOS CONTROL!" teleporting both himself and the giant cluster of hostages far away from the scene. 

Seconds later the sound of the Chaos Matron's roar of frustration was audible inside her water-formed palace where Blaze and Buta were already fighting their way past the Chaos forces, carrying the terrified Cheese along with them. 

_To Be Continued._


	41. The Final Act Part Two

**Chapter 38: The Final Act (Part 2)**

The Super Flickies filled the sky like snow. For several seconds the Chaos Matron could do nothing but watch aghast as her Chaos minions were battered by barrages of golden comets, tearing through each and every one of the watery giants, until nothing but lifeless puddles remained. Because the connection between the Matron and her children was so strong, the stress felt by the defeated Chaos was fired back into her mind, assailing her from all sides. In her distraught state, she didn't even notice Super Silver accelerating towards her until it was too late... 

Against a background of thousands of super-speeding golden birds, lighting up the darkness, Super Silver rocketed through the Chaos Matron's body, which in turn exploded into a torrent of lucid water. But before Silver could turn around, even before the droplets touched the ground, the process suddenly reversed in mid-air; every single drop of fluid defying gravity and momentum to join back into a single form. The restored Chaos Matron wobbled unsteadily. As soon as her focus returned, she shot Silver a look of pure hatred and roared like something out of the darkest depths of the ocean. The force of the cry was strong enough that Silver's spikes flew back and his muzzle vibrated like he was standing in the face of a hurricane. 

"Whoa! Watch the language," the glowing hedgehog said flippantly once the gale subsided. 

"You-" the Chaos Matron began, but stopped abruptly. She'd thrown a claw-like hand towards Silver, and only now noticed that the tip of the index finger was missing. She stared at the stunted digit. "You...hurt me...?" she said like she couldn't quite believe it. "I'll KILL you!!" 

"Yeah, I'd like to see you tr-AIEEE!!" 

Super Silver might've been able to dodge that blow in time, but he really wasn't prepared for the sight of the Chaos Matron's left hand ballooning to the size of a wrecking ball and then smashing into him with the same crushing force as the genuine article. Before the unintentionally flying hedgehog could complete his arc through the air, the Chaos Matron flapped her mighty wings once and was propelled forward at incredible speed, overtaking Super Silver and grabbing him by the neck with what felt like talons, then accelerating to crash into the wall of the nearest building with Silver taking the worst of the impact head-on. 

Splinters burned off of the hedgehog's energized body as he was thrown yet again, this time landing on top of a pile of broken furniture. The Chaos Matron stopped near the gaping hole they'd entered through, then started walking forward again with a menacing air. This looked like an old storage area, long abandoned judging by the excessive amount of dust. Large wooden columns that looked to be of the load-bearing persuasion interrupted the large empty space at regular points. The Chaos Matron walked straight through one of those columns on her way to where Super Silver lay, her body flowing around the pillar like water. 

Not one to stay on the receiving end of the punishment for too long, Super Silver tossed away the worn-out pieces of furniture with a quick blast of psychokinesis, then prepared to unleash a second super comet blow through the Chaos Matron. Even if it had to be one tiny jigsaw piece at a time, he'd wear her down until there was nothing left. Super Silver stormed...and went straight through without touching his enemy. He looked back to see the Chaos Matron's body flow back to cover the large hole that'd expanded from the middle of her torso to let him pass without as much as a scrape. Because he was looking the wrong way, what happened next was that Super Silver, who still hadn't properly slowed down, accidentally demolished one of the wooden columns, causing the whole building to shake. 

Super Silver paused at the troubling sound of aching architecture. So did the Chaos Matron, but her reluctance only lasted a second before she lashed out both arms, stretching them far enough to get a firm grip around two of three remaining load-bearers. 

"You wouldn't," said Silver. 

The Chaos Matron smiled and pulled hard. Eight stories subsequently collapsed on top of both of them. 

- 

With the queen nasty's elite gang turned to lotion, the Super Flickies spread out across Central City, vanquishing Chaos everywhere. They didn't even need to look. Buta had been right, Flickies had an even greater capacity for using Emerald power than most animaloids, and for that reason they could feel exactly where next Chaos was within a heartbeat. 

For some reason the only thing that was proving resistant against the Super Flickies was the outer walls of the Chaos Matron's palace. They could dissolve the watery goo easily, but for some reason it stubbornly flowed back the next second no matter what they did. Still, it was enough opportunity for several dozen Flickies to get inside the building and make short work of the Chaos that stood between the two heroes within and the ultimate prize. To Blaze's credit, she'd beaten four Chaos by herself before the Flickies stepped in to aid. Buta was reluctant to attack the transformed chao himself unless absolutely necessary. 

- 

The cloud of dust caused by the building's collapse eventually dispersed in the rain. A recognisable shade of gelatinous fluid flowed out of the gigantic mound of debris and gradually reformed into the relatively unharmed body of the Chaos Matron. 

It didn't take long for the threatened ruler to decide what to do next. She stretched her arms towards the sky, and waited for just the right moment, as Super Flickies flew above. 

KA-BAM!! 

Multiple bolts of lightning struck at the same time, surging fatal electricity through the bodies of numerous Flickies before striking the ground. The Chaos Matron sneered at the tiny dead bodies falling before her, focusing instead on intensifying the next burst to finish off a far greater number of the feathered rebels. She didn't hear the sound of shifting debris behind her until... 

An avalanche of broken walls and metal piping rained down on the Chaos Matron, burying her. As before, her body simply flowed around the objects and reformed as soon as it regained space to grow to full size. This time, however, Super Silver was ready, striking the Chaos Matron the instant she restored herself, then doubling back and damaging her yet again the instant she recovered from the previous attack. Keeping up the pace, Super Silver was able to momentarily trap the monster, keeping her unable to find an opportunity to react before she was struck down again and again and again. 

Then finally the Chaos Matron didn't reform at all. Super Silver looked around anxiously, trying to spot where her liquefied form had run off to. Was it over? Had he won already? 

Super Silver coughed, feeling his throat painful and sticky. That was odd. Maybe he was starting to catch a cold in this lousy weather. Hang on, he was Super. It'd be too silly if Super forms could survive a natural disaster unscathed yet be as vulnerable as anybody to plain old germs. 

Abruptly the golden hedgehog broke into a coughing fit. His lungs were starting to burn. What the hell was happening? 

_"Steam, Silver,"_ said a voice that was barely a voice at all. _"Try to burn water, and you get steam."_

Silver's vision was getting blurry. He wasn't sure if he really saw those glowing spots of green light in the mist or if it was just his imagination. He couldn't hear the sound of the rain anymore, just that horrible mocking laughter... 

He fell to his knees. His strength was fading, and so was his Super form. The glow was weakening with each second. Unless he did something, he'd be a goner for sure. 

_"Give up and die. That was your chosen outcome from the moment you decided to challenge me. Nothing could have saved you from this fate."_

"No...!" 

Super Silver leapt straight up. Channeling his psychokinesis was the only way. He wouldn't have been able to fly on sheer will alone now. 

_"Where are you going? Would you rather fall to your death? Roadkill, that's what you'll be. Fitting for vermin."_

He passed the skyscrapers. The rain was really intensifying now, as were the lightning flashes, as if they were accompanying the orchestration of the Chaos Matron's triumph. It was getting colder... 

_"Has anyone ever died in Super form? What happens to the Emeralds then? Will they fall into my lap? Oh, imagine the things I could do with those! Kill all who would ever oppose me, then destroy the Chaos Emeralds forever. Of course. This world only needs one goddess."_

The clouds were almost touching him. Heavy with malice, he felt as if they would choke him to death if dared to go near them. As that seemed his likely future anyway, he saw no reason not to press on. It was freezing by now... 

Then...just as he thought he could go no further, his lungs and throat on fire, Super Silver touched the blue sky, saw the heaven lit beautifully golden with the rays of the setting sun. And in the coldness of the lower atmosphere, Silver saw the horrible mist surrounding him becoming forcefully congealed to a point, returning to a humanoid shape. Suddenly the pressure ceased! Super Silver gasped, breathing in at last. The Chaos Matron's face was so close to his he could feel the glow of her eyes on his nose. Before she could react, Silver grabbed her arms. He could feel the Matron trying to alter her fluid state, but failing to do so in this low temperature. 

"Curse you, Silver the Hedgehog!" the Chaos Matron spat. "You once fought alongside the founder of the Prower dynasty. Would you honour him by murdering his descendants?" 

"No," said Silver. "I'll honour him by fighting to save the world from monsters like you, just like he did." 

With that, Super Silver let gravity take hold. His powers were back in full, and he intended to use them. Like a comet, gold and icy blue fire trailing behind, Silver dragged the Chaos Matron back through the clouds, down towards the city stretched out beneath them. 

"Flickies, to me!!" Super Silver shouted. 

"What are you doing? Unhand me, you wretched-" 

Seen from the ground, one could only see a point of light moving rapidly downward, leaving behind a tunnel through the clouds above. Lightning burst all around, as if trying to grab it out of the sky. Then, from below, something as tiny as a firefly began its ascent, heading straight for the falling light. Before long the firefly was followed by numbers far too great to count, converging towards that single spot in the sky. 

The Super Flickies continued flying in and joining in the whirlwind formation around Super Silver and the Chaos Matron. Silver's golden hue was now rivalled by his own teal glow of active psychokinesis. He was pouring everything he had and more into this, and the Flickies were amplifying the effect with every metre they fell, creating a funnel of energy so great that even if the Chaos Matron was thawed enough to escape, she wouldn't have a chance to. 

The energy funnel, Super Silver, the Super Flickies, all of it, finally hit the ground. There was a spark, then total darkness. Then...an explosion of such intense energy that every window within a hundred block radius burst inward, paint was fried off the walls, and the cloud layer was pushed back and forcefully dispersed, allowing sunlight to touch the city for the first time in days. 

It was Silver's psycho-shock move, amplified a thousand times over. 

At the end of it there was silence. An enormous crater now filled the open area outside the front entrance to Chaos Matron's palace. The first to emerge from the crater was a red Flicky with a crown of spiky feathers. 

"Sheesh. I'm gonna feel that one in the mornin'," the Flicky exclaimed before flying over to rest on a tree that'd had all its leaves and most of its branches blown off by the blast. 

More Flickies soon followed, and eventually Silver the Hedgehog, who had the hardest job of having to climb out of the hole without any wings to help him. He'd use his levitation power, but he was just too exhausted to even try. His delay to get out was further explained by the chore of having to climb up high enough to toss each Chaos Emerald up one by one. He needed at least one free hand to climb. He wouldn't even consider trying to draw out the power of the Emeralds again. Right now he'd probably fry half his fur off in the attempt or something. 

Of the Chaos Matron there was nothing left. It should finally be over... 

- 

_To Be Continued._


	42. The Final Act Part Three

**Chapter 39: The Final Act (Part 3)**

Blaze eventually managed to pull herself away from the window. 

"A complete victory. How very impressive," said Buta. 

"Yeah..." 

"You are uncertain. Why is this?" 

"Just wondering why this tower is still coated in bizarre gel and water," said Blaze, indicating their surroundings. "I was kind of expecting it all to dissolve and return Prower Tower to something resembling normal once the Chaos Matron was destroyed." 

"Curious, but we likely do not need to worry." 

"I hope you're right. Come on, Buta. Let's get to the top and fire up the machine. As soon as Silver brings the Emeralds, we'll be able to finally return the world to normal." 

Buta stopped. 

"Ah yes...of course." 

"I something wrong?" 

Buta levitated to place himself directly in Blaze's path. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that now, my friend." 

"Huh? What are you saying? Get out of the way." 

Buta's voice was as irritatingly calm and controlled as ever. "Blaze the Cat, what do you think will happen if the Change is reversed?" 

"The fighting all over the world will stop, and nothing like the Chaos Matron will ever be able to threaten anyone again." 

"How naive. You're no better than Silver. All you can think about is your own kind. Fool! Can't you see the seething hatred? The lust for vengeance? If you render children without a means to defend themselves, then they will be slaughtered! The naively well-meaning fools will be powerless to hold back the tide of hatred! Humans and animaloids never learn. When given an opportunity to answer with murder, they will not stop to consider that it was their own cruelty that gave rise to the hostile Chaos." Buta pronounced the last word with spite. Something alien was entering his voice now. His eyes didn't look right either. "The engine of my people's destruction MUST be destroyed!" 

- 

After throwing the seventh Chaos Emerald over the edge, Silver struggled to pull himself up. Along the jagged edges of the crater he'd found the easiest place to climb, yet he was having a very hard time mustering the strength to pull his own weight up, and just the thought of levitating was enough to give the hedgehog a migraine. 

The last thing Silver expected to see was a Chaos kneeling down to lend him a helping hand. The surprise nearly made him lose his grip, which the monster took as cue to grab his arm and pull him up regardless. Silver hadn't heard it coming, and the reason why was clear; the recent explosion of Super-enhanced psychokinetic energy had temporarily damaged his hearing. 

"Are you alright?" the Chaos asked. 

Silver might have wondered why he could hear the voice clearly, but he wasn't yet aware of any problem with his hearing, so he didn't. He was more concerned with why the creature could speak at all. 

"Buta?" Silver inquired with a raised eye brow. 

"What? No. My name is Lillian. Lillian the Echidna," the dreadlocked Chaos clarified. "I'm sure you don't know me, but suffice it to say that I'm one of the people to blame for what's become of the world." 

"Hey, no problem," Silver said, still confused, but trying to catch up. "The Chaos Matron was controlling you, right? Not your fault. How come you can talk? No, wait, before you answer that, do you mind putting me down now?" 

"How come I can talk? Oh, I see. You think I'm an echidna-trait chao with an odd choice for a name. Stupid chao breeder fads," Lillian uttered as she gently lowered Silver to the ground. "I'm a real echidna, Silver. Or I was. I was one of the brains behind Project Succession. I designed and helped build the Chaos Emerald Energy Amplification Device, the machine responsible for broadcasting the effects of the chao transformation worldwide. More important than that, I was the member of the research group responsible for arranging the test cases for the 'Reverse Chao Possession Experiment'." 

Fatigue turned to anger as Silver realised the implications of Lillian's claims. "Are you telling me," he said slowly, "that you're the one responsible for creating the Chaos Matron in the first place?" 

"In a word; yes." 

"What the hell were you thinking!?" Silver yelled. "I'm serious! I want to know exactly what made you think giving that insane old fox god-like powers and creating havoc all over the planet was a good idea!!" 

Lillian shrank back, both figuratively and literally, as her Chaos body lost was reducing in mass with each moment, gradually giving her a stature more befitting an animaloid. "We tried to stop her," she began. 

"Well, you obviously didn't try hard enough! If you idiot scientists had just stopped working or given Veronica a shoddy end-product, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess! Do you any clue how many people have died because of YOU!" 

Silver stopped. He was suddenly looking into the eyes of an echidna face, and the expression he saw told him clearly that she knew all too well. "Alright, alright..." he said, mostly to calm himself down. "Why...why don't you start at the beginning?" 

Lillian told him everything. About Lady Veronica's wild ideas that lead to her initiating Project Succession. About the realisation amongst the top three scientists as to what the dire consequences would be of the Project's culmination. About the conspiracy, and the plan to sabotage the project in such a way that it would be ended permanently. The sad truth was that by the time Lillian, Ernst and Ramon realised that they would have to lay their lives on the line in order to prevent a global cataclysm, it was already too late to kill the project. Their refusal to cooperate might've set the Chao Cataclysm back a year or two, but it would've done nothing to prevent it in the long run. They had to get close enough to the final product in order to destroy it, and that meant overcoming Veronica's natural suspiciousness towards her own underlings. Having one of the three become a sacrificial lamb was the only way. Lillian drew the short straw. But- 

"-but instead of letting Veronica get her claws into me, I chose a different way. I knew my two allies would implant false knowledge into my mind before Veronica tortured me into a vegetable state in order to get the info she wanted. So since I was doomed anyway, I committed two separate crimes that would've earned me a death sentence in Lady Prower's company anyway. Did you know that that darling charitable business mogul had been illegally cloning genetically boosted soldiers to serve as her security staff? I didn't know either until a month ago. Just that alone would've earned Veronica a life sentence, so it's safe to say I wouldn't have lived to see daylight if she had any idea I knew. I made sure Ernst and Ramon were ignorant of the cloning labs. They had to stay alive..." 

Silver didn't ask if Lillian knew if those two were still around today. He only had to look at her to know. Strange how a face made of solidified water could convey so much. 

"...So I grew a clone. It was a rush job, wouldn't have fooled anyone if it had to do my work for five minutes, but it looked like me and it could hold memories. I waited until the right time, then let Veronica's guards haul it off for torture and cruel company. Meanwhile, I went back to my own lab and, as you may have guessed, I performed the 'Reverse Chao Possession Experiment' on myself. I figured that if the plan worked, then I'd at least be alive, and who knows? Maybe someday I'd be able to undo the process and get my own body back. And...if the plan didn't work, I'd become a Stage Four Chao, and maybe I'd be able to stop Veronica myself." Lillian sighed. "You can tell what happened. I hadn't expected that she'd be able to seize control of me so easily. Some genius I am." 

There was that feeling of hope. Silver hadn't felt it in quite a while. 

"So that means that since you're free to be yourself now, the Chaos Matron is really destroyed for good!" 

"Not...necessarily." 

And there was that feeling of hope being snuffed out again. Now that was a really familiar feeling. 

"I get enough cryptic nonsense from Buta," Silver complained. "Is she dead or isn't she?" 

"I can't tell. I can still feel her influence everywhere. Whether it's just a lingering influence that'll fade away, or a sign that this is only a respite, I can't tell." 

Silver flung his hands up in an exasperated gesture. "Then let's hurry up and get the job done, just to be sure. Hey, if you helped build that nasty machine that caused the Chao Cataclysm, then you should know. If we activate it again using all seven Chaos Emeralds and a chao that was immune to the effects of first Cataclysm, then will that do the job of restoring all the chao back to normal?" 

Lillian's eyes widened. "That's brilliant," she said. "It should work. It really should! That is, there's a small chance it would amplify the first signal, with disastrous consequences." 

"What kind of disastrous consequences?" 

"Imagine millions of Perfect Chaos." 

Silver imagined it. It was a pretty scary image. 

"Maybe...maybe we should think this through some more..." he said carefully. 

- 

The Space Colony Ark was fully manned for the first time in two and a half centuries. The future Shadow had brought the citizens of Central City to the safest place he knew. Conquest and the present-day Shadow were there as well. To see the Ark populated once again had a strong effect on the confused mind of the Ultimate Life-Form. This time he would awaken to find the world he truly belonged in. 

- 

Pia, Jennifer and Terkal Jr. stood guard around the Chaos Emerald Energy Amplification Device. The machine was slightly ajar due to the gelatinous substance that covered every inch of what used to be Prower Tower, but it looked to be in working order. Jennifer had given the machine a thorough once-over while the other two agents watched the climactic battle between Super Silver and the Chaos Matron, and she decreed it to be in good shape. 

It had been easy for those three to get to the top. Pia had made sure to record the precise coordinates of the rooftop so the Temporal Protectorate agents could jump to that spot directly using their time-travel Jumpsuits. Unfortunately, travelling through interdimensional space with a chao was too risky for a first attempt, forcing Blaze and Buta to escort Cheese to the top by hand. 

The rooftop elevator access door was opened earlier than expected, and Buta was alone when he emerged. 

"What are you doing here? Where are Blaze and Cheese?" Pia asked, stepping forward. 

"They will be slightly delayed," Buta explained. His voice was very odd. 

The Fifth Stage chao flew over to the roof edge. "It's a very impressive view from up here, isn't it? This is the highest point in Central City, you know. It would be something to worry about in stormy weather, but look, the sky is clearing. The first stars are emerging. Beautiful sight. One should always take the time to appreciate beauty." 

There was an audible crack. Jennifer looked around, and found with horror that the blue substance coating the floor was beginning to creep onto the Chaos Emerald Energy Amplification Device, causing the machine to tremble under the sheer pressure. Terkal wasted no time grabbing the edge of the coating and trying to pull it back with his supernatural strength. He'd certainly be strong enough to manage it, if the substance would let him. It shifted from solid to liquid as his hands came near, preventing any chance of getting a grip. 

"Oh, look," said Buta. "The clouds are pulling back together. We may see a storm after all." 

The metal exterior of the machine was starting to bend inward. 

"Buta! You have to stop this!" Pia shouted. 

"Stop what? I'm just removing an eye sore from this lovely scene." 

Sparks began to issue forth as the delicate intricacies within the machine were exposed. Momentarily the sparks died as the gel flowed into the cracks. 

"Smash," said Buta happily. 

Before the eyes of the time travel agents the only chance to restore the world to normal was crushed utterly. Terkal was the first to react. He screamed with rage and ran at Buta with his fists raised. Only steps away, the echidna stopped and was held frozen in mid-air, writhing in agony.

"By the essence of one pure chao, I became the most powerful being in existence," said the creature that was definitely not Buta. "By the convergence of pure chao essence contained within this wonder, I must be God." 

"You're no god, Veronica," said Pia hatefully. "You're just an insane old wretch." 

"I understand everything now," the Chaos Matron went on, ignoring Pia. "The reason why I have failed so far is because I tried to create a balance between humans, animaloids and chao. But humans are ugly, and animaloids are filthy creatures. In a perfect world, there can be only chao. Now and forever. All else MUST DIE!" 

The Chaos Matron turned Buta's body around and carried it off, its large wings flapping majestically. Terkal was released. It almost seemed like the monster forgot he even existed. 

Then Earth trembled... 

- 

Silver stumbled. 

"Earthquake? Now?" he exclaimed. 

He then noticed that Lillian was on her knees, shaking. "No...it's her! I can't...hold..." 

In an instant the echidna shape was lost, and Silver found himself looking right at a big nasty Chaos. It was one of the bigger ones, one of the Chaos Matron's royal guards. The creature wasted no time knocking Silver a good distance away with a single sweeping blow. It didn't come after him, though. It went off in a different direction, soon joining in a virtual parade of Chaos, all heading towards a single location. 

The tremors grew worse. Silver jumped back as a manhole exploded right in front of him, generating a spray of water so powerful that it tore up the concrete around the hole. 

"Oh shi-" 

It was impossible to hear the rest of what Silver exclaimed over the incredible noise of downtown Central City being ripped open by an explosion of water, as if the very oceans were trying to flood into the sewers beneath the city. Silver didn't even notice the second explosion of multiple thunder blasts before rain fell so hard that it stung his fur painfully. 

Racing for cover, Silver had no chance of spotting the shape growing between the rising mountain of Chaos merging together and the floods of water coming from above and below. Pia, Jennifer and Terkal did watch it, however. Their Jumpsuits protected them from the elements, but barely. 

The thing that had resembled Buta was ballooning into a gigantic form, slowly changing shape as it grew. At one point it was a titanic likeness of the Chaos Matron, but then it kept on growing and changing. The animaloid fox face grew sharper teeth and more ferocious features, changing into a nightmarish lupine form, then changing even further into a primal beast of prehistoric nature. The Matron's slender arms were altered grotesquely with excessive muscle, shedding liquid fur and gaining a spiny exoskeleton of glacier ice. Tentacles sharpened to points rose out of the base of the monstrosity, carving through buildings as it grew ever larger...

Tinier than ants, Pia, Jennifer and Terkal Jr. stood in the shadow of the Chaos God. 

"Her kids are still downstairs in the throne room," said Jennifer once her voice could be heard. 

"I...don't think she- I don't think it cares," said Pia sadly. "I guess rage has a different effect on chao than on us. The first Chaos would've destroyed the world if Sonic hadn't stopped him, and that being was a kind and noble soul at heart. Veronica...she was just a power-hungry demon." 

"Forget all that! How do we kill it!?" Terkal shouted. 

- 

Silver stood on a block of floating wood panelling, gazing up at the mountainous foe. He had the Chaos Emeralds, but what good would they do? He'd barely been able to beat the Chaos Matron the first time, when she was barely any bigger than himself. How could he possibly stand a chance against something so huge he couldn't even make out the top of it? 

No, saving the world wasn't the most important thing right now. That was a weird thought, but Silver knew it was true. Finding Blaze, that was what really mattered right now. They'd figure out a way to save the day once they were back together, just like they always did. 

The white hedgehog levitated rapidly towards the submerged entrance into the Chaos Matron's palace. He was no less tired than before, but even his own fatigue wasn't important enough to worry about right now. 

- 

_To Be Concluded._


	43. Destiny's Rebirth

**Last Chapter: Destiny's Rebirth**

The conflict was over. All over the planet, the Chaos-creatures were abandoning the week-long battle and joining in a zombie-like march. The people watching had no clue what had caused their allies and enemies to suddenly change priorities, nor were they aware that each and every one of the watery beings were headed towards the same location. There was little time to wonder either way, as the earthquake felt by Silver and friends in Central City had resonated all across the planet Earth, generating widespread panic and causing monumental property damage. Although the earthquake would only faintly register on the destructive scale, it was a prelude to horror beyond imagining. The Chaos God had gained a grip around the planet by extending its body mass through the very oceans. Even with the Chaos Matron's power now enhanced into the realm of true godhood, it was taking a long time to channel the necessary energy to increase the pressure upon the planet. Nonetheless, soon, inescapably soon, the Chaos God would break the Earth's crust, unleashing destructive power the likes of which no living thing could ever survive. Only the immortal Fourth Stage chao would live on... 

- 

Silver broke the surface on the second floor of the Chaos Matron's palace. He'd barely managed to hold his breath long enough to swim through the underwater entrance hall and locate the stairwell. Imagine his surprise to find the big waiting room space filled to the brim with Flickies. Although ashamed to admit it, Silver hadn't given the Flickies much thought when the disasters began, but evidently the balloon-headed birds could take care of themselves. 

If Silver had asked how the birds managed to get inside the one safe place left in the city, then the big fat one next to him would have answered derogatively "Wow, you don't know the first thing about Flickies, do ya?" 

But the only thing on Silver's mind was Blaze. He made out the shape that the more matriarchal birds were busying over right away. 

The loud and clear greeting the Flickies had given their friend had only registered as faint chirping to the hedgehog. Against the sight of Blaze lying beaten on the floor, the birds were just colourful bits of scenery. 

"Don't worry, boyo, she's still breathing," a green Flicky with a misplaced Irish accent said reassuringly. 

"It was that chao friend of hers what done it," a rugged grey bird exclaimed. "We saw 'm. That dastard was throwin' her wall to wall when we came in through the ring portal. Musta been scared off at the sight of us." 

"No, I don't think he even noticed us," a purple female Flicky disagreed. "Remember the way he was flying around, like he couldn't make up his mind whether to go forward or back. And then right before he flew off, he shouted 'I won't let you use me like this!' really loud." 

"Musta been a skitzophrenical chao." 

"Oh please. You don't even know what that word means, do you?" 

All of that was lost on Silver. And yet, as he stood there looking at his unconscious girlfriend, feeling wretched and helpless, Silver did hear a voice. 

_"Place a Chaos Emerald in her hands. It will heal her, if you wish for it to happen."_

Silver sat down beside Blaze. He brought out a Chaos Emerald and did as instructed. The effect was instantaneous. The cat's body was bathed in a warm glow, then revealed to be healed of every cut and bruise. She still didn't wake up, though... 

"She'll be all right, won't she?" Silver asked with slight desperation in his voice. 

"Chao!" 

"Good. I- That's good. Do you- Do you know who did this to her?" 

"Chao." 

"Buta!? No, that's impossible. Unless..." 

"Chao! Chao-chao." 

"Of course. Dammit! Why didn't I see this? Why the hell didn't Buta realise how vulnerable he'd be?" 

_"I suspect he believed that he would prove strong enough to contain the Chaos Matron within himself. Didn't you notice how desperate he was to find a way to prevent you from undoing the Change?"_

"Yes, of course, but... I thought he understood that it has to be done" 

_"In the end it was his favouring of chao over all other forms of life that made him so easy to bend to that evil woman's will. I don't think Buta would ever have been able to bring himself to do what he did to Blaze. His resistance was the only reason why he didn't kill us both."_

"There's still time, though, right? If we put you and the Emeralds in the Chaos Emerald Energy...whatever machine, then it should destroy the Chaos Matron properly, right?" 

_"Maybe so, but with Buta's memories now belonging to the Chaos Matron, wouldn't she make it her first priority to destroy the machine and render her victory untouchable?"_

"Probably, but we have to try anyway. It's our only chance." 

Silver finally turned his attention to the hundreds of Flickies watching in fascination. None of them had been able to understand a word Cheese said. 

"Flickies," he said, "can you do me one more favour? Please watch over Blaze for me. I'll be back as soon as I can." 

"Don't worry, boyo. We'll make sure no harm comes to her." 

"What?" 

"I said don't worry." 

"Huh? Could you speak up." 

_"They say they'll watch over her. I think being so close to the blast that destroyed the Chaos Matron ruined your hearing."_

Silver patted his ears. "But I can hear you just fine, Cheese. Only...how come you can speak English now?" 

_"This is not English. We chao have always been able to communicate clearly. It's not our fault that until now the only animaloid who ever bothered to learn how to listen was a six year old rabbit girl."_

"Cream... Huh. I always wondered how she could understand everything you said." Silver shook his head, displacing the expression of benign fascination with one that spelled aggressive determination. "But no time for that! We've got to finish this once and for all. Cheese, are you with me?" 

"Chao!" 

"Then let's go!" 

- 

Pia was standing alone on the roof of the tower by the time Silver and Cheese reached the top. Although spared death, Terkal had suffered massive internal bleeding as a result of the Fifth Stage chao's assault, forcing Jennifer to teleport him to safety before he expired. It had been fifteen minutes since the doomsday monster completed its transformation, and during that time Pia had stood motionless, watching as it destroyed the city around it. Central City was already dead. Before long the rest of the world would follow. Yet with all that pressure mounting on the heroine to turn the tide, she felt stuck. Her mind was a complete and utter blank. All she could think about was that she'd failed in her duty, and because of that the lifetime she knew would now never exist. Everyone she knew, everyone she cared about - dead, or never to be born at all. 

"Pia!" Silver called. 

The cat didn't move. 

"Did she say anything?" 

"Chao."

"Pia! It's me!" 

She still didn't turn, but at least offered a response. "Go somewhere far away and live the rest of your life as happily as you can. Maybe you'll have a day or two of peace. It'll be more than most people will get." 

"What did she say?" Silver asked, again tilting his head towards the airborne Cheese. 

"Chao! Chao-chao! Chao." 

"What? You can't be serious, Pia! So the machine is ruined. Is that any reason to give up? I know a girl dressed in liquid who can build us another one. All we have to do is destroy that monster properly so she'll be free to aid us." 

Pia half-turned. "And how do we do that? I saw you before. You only barely managed to win the first time. Now you're up against something a thousand times more powerful. Shadow might be strong enough to last a minute against it. You? Not even a second." 

"Cheese?" 

The chao repeated Pia's grim claim. Silver didn't like hearing it one bit. 

"It'll be different this time." 

Looking at Silver's face, Pia might almost believe he was telling the truth. The Silver she knew from her own life had retired from his adventuring days when she was young. She'd seen how resourceful he could be when they hunted Pretorious across history and saved the timeline together. Still, she'd never come to know Silver the Hedgehog's greatest trait. Because when the chips were down, when utter hopelessness overshadowed every possibility, that was when Silver cast away every shred of self-doubt and pulled the right answer out of a million dire outcomes. 

Silver didn't hear what Pia said next. He didn't need to. He was going to show her. 

"Cheese." 

"Chao?" 

"I want you to possess me." 

_"You can't be serious!"_ Cheese looked at Silver. _"You are serious. How can you ask that? It's the ultimate crime for a chao, even worse than murder. How do you even know about the possibility? That secret has been kept since chao history began."_

"Buta, Lillian, and Veronica. They all knew about it. The 'Reverse Chao Possession Experiment', Lillian called it. What the Chaos Matron did to that chameleon with her, that was the straightforward possession act, right? Just like how the tail of Chaos possessed that frog two centuries ago. Any chao can possess any living thing. That's the ultimate secret of the chao, isn't it? It's also the only way to destroy the Chaos Matron and save the world." 

_"You can't understand what you're suggesting. If the truth ever came out we would be hunted to extinction. It would mean the end of our kind, forever."_

"I'm sorry, Cheese. I really am, but it's the only way." 

"Wait!" Pia called out. "I need to know, if you let this chao do as you suggest, what'll happen to you? Will you still be you afterwards? Is it permanent?" 

"Chao! Chao!" Cheese repeated, buying time. 

"Oh. Well?" said Silver. 

_"I don't know! How could I know? I've never spoken to a chao who would do the unthinkable. The frog turned back to normal, but if it would be the same for a full-fledged animaloid, who could possibly know?"_

"It's a chance worth taking." 

"He didn't give you a straight answer, did he?" said Pia, getting angrier. "It's my life on the line too, you know, if you- If- Dammit! You can't hear me. It wouldn't matter if you could, because I know you. There's no way you'd ever back down from this. Well, fine. Do what you think you have to do, but if you get killed I'll never forgive you!" 

And, Pia mentally added, since I'll probably get erased from existence the moment you die, there won't be much time for forgiveness either way. Urgh, I don't even want to think about what kind of nasty paradoxes that would cause. 

"Look at it this way, Cheese," said Silver, kneeling down in front of the anxious chao. "If we lose, we'll just go a little bit sooner than everyone else. The Chaos Matron will either enslave or destroy everyone. And if we win, then I promise I'll take all the credit. No one will ever know what you did, except us, and I promise you that we'll do absolutely everything we can to make sure the chao around the world are kept safe from retaliations once we bring them all back to normal." 

Cheese was silent. 

"What would Cream want you to do?" Pia said suddenly, surprising even herself. 

- 

"-very obedient, excellent breeding, and superb class," the chao breeder boasted before the ornamental cage belonging to an adorable puce Hero chao, dancing around and making coo'ing sounds. 

"Isn't she cute?" said Vanilla, kneeling down beside her daughter. 

"Oh yes! Can we pick her, mother?" 

"Excellent choice!" boomed the chao breeder. "I'll let you get properly acquainted while I go fetch the paperwork. You really do have superb taste, little girl." 

"Thank you, mister." 

The rather large man nearly made it to the door before the squeaky voice of the rabbit girl called him back. 

"Is there something wrong?" he asked, his kind sincerity sounding a little more forced now that he was having to extend his regular performance to the clientèle. 

"Why is that one crying?" 

The chao breeder followed the girl's gaze, but he knew right away the cause. 

"Oh I'm so dreadfully sorry. That freak isn't supposed to be part of the exhibit. I'll have to have a word with my assistant. Don't worry, I'll make sure that failure doesn't bother you anymore." 

"But why is he crying?" 

"Who knows? Loneliness, hunger, could be anything. Well, don't look at me like that! You can't expect us to waste perfectly good food on a freak that can't even absorb animal traits. Keeping it in the same garden as the other chao would be disastrous, imagine if it were to breed! We'd be ruined!" 

"Now look here, sir," Vanilla began. 

"You're a monster! You leave him alone right now, you mean monster!" 

"Madam, would you keep your brat in line. This is a business, and-" 

"Mother, can we take that chao with us?" 

Vanilla looked at the unhappy chao, at the steaming chao breeder, and at her pleading daughter. 

"Yes," she said. "I think we should." 

- 

Cheese touched the edge of his bow tie. It was the first gift Cream had ever given him, but far from the last. Somewhere out there, in the great wide world, there was another little girl looking for a chao companion, and a vile monster standing in the way. 

He looked up at Silver, and made his decision. 

"Chao." 

- 

Seven Chaos Emeralds spinning around a white hedgehog holding a chao. Both are locked in deep concentration, while the seven bright auras expand to blanket the pair, merging together into a single beam of energy. The burst of light is brighter than during the previous Super transformation, and this time the figure emerging as the vessel of ultimate power is not gold, but pale white, as a Hero Chao. 

Shimmers of blue run across the glowing white fur. The eyes are pure green, signifying a gentle essence instead of a heartless one as the Chaos Matron's eyes had done. The muzzle is white as the fur, the mouth missing, just like a chao in its natural state. 

Pia took all of this in at once. "Super Cheese or Super Silver. Or maybe both. Whatever you are, I hope you know what you're doing." 

The hedgehog nodded. 

"Well...what are you waiting for? Save the world." 

The hedgehog nodded again, then was gone in a flash of silver. Pia watched him fly straight towards the mountainous bulk of the Chaos God. This would be the end, one way or another. 

- 

There was nothing female or even fox-like about the Chaos God now. It was savage rage embodied, destroying everything around it, not out of evil or pleasure, but out of purpose. Until its apocalyptic task was done, the _thing_ could barely manage to sustain a sense of self. A muscular torso extending from a mass of goo that sprouted hundreds of razor-tipped tentacles. The head of the beast was a hellish reimagining of the wolf, teeth too sharp and vicious to have a practical use, unnatural pointed ears, and burning eyes that reflected the destructive emotional state of the thing.. 

Against the backdrop of the colossal abomination the warrior draped in the form of Silver the Hedgehog was barely more than a gnat. Without his natural glow he would've been too tiny to spot compared to the size of his enemy. 

The hedgehog picked up speed, the Chaos God coming closer and closer until it filled his view completely. The monster hadn't even seen him yet. It was an opportunity that had to be explored. The hero had to know if Silver's theory had been correct. He flew straight towards the monster's chest, aiming at the spot where its heart would have been if it had one. 

It saw him! The Chaos God attempted to shift away by displacing its massive bulk, but it was too slow now. The white hedgehog accelerated yet again and tore straight through the monster's shoulder and out the other side. The reaction was instantaneous. Tons of chao gel were melted into steam, and the Chaos God emitted a cry of genuine pain. Silver's touch was now truly lethal to the beast born of transformed chao. 

"Silver was right..." the hero wearing his guise exclaimed. 

The Chaos God responded with a bestial roar that shook the very foundation of the city, causing many buildings that'd lost their structural integrity during the recent floods to collapse into rubble. Chaos Silver didn't flinch. 

Before Silver could deliver his next crushing blow to the fiend, the Chaos God got on the offensive. The icy exoskeleton covering its arms was broken up into hundreds of thousands of tiny ice needles, and launched at the hedgehog as a deadly shower. The hedgehog might have been done for, but his mind, riding on the waves of power like he'd never known, knew he didn't have to be. He held out his hand, and caught the entire shower of deadly pellets in his psychokinetic grip. As the monster watched, he gathered the ice spikes into a single sphere of solid ice, gaining a tremendous wrecking ball for his effort. Silver launched the sphere at the monster, which did nothing to avoid it. Why should it have, as the object merely got caught in its watery body and floated there. Because the hero seized the opportunity to accelerate in pursuit of his own projectile, piercing the Chaos God through the hole created when the ice ball passed through its rubbery outer layer. Once inside, the hedgehog answered to generations-old instincts and spun into a ball, cannoning through the trapped ice sphere and causing it to explode into a blast of steam and white light that had the Chaos God screaming in mortal pain. 

Emerging into fresh air, Silver turned and flew backwards while watching the monster, severed in half, fall on its back, crushing an entire city block beneath its oversized body. The earthquakes finally ceased, and the storm lessened to a mild a shower. Now that the Chaos God needed to conserve so much more power just to keep itself together, its grip upon the planet was weakening rapidly. 

- 

Everywhere outside a ten mile radius of Central City saw sudden changes. The marching Chaos halted so abruptly that many of them stumbled over each other. Because the tide of marching water-elementals had completely ignored everything that did not stand in their path, many humans and animaloids had gathered to watch the spectacle. The Chaos all looked around with curious expressions. Some of the spectators started to back away, fearing that the creatures would resume their battles, but instead the fluid multitude seemed to reach a unanimous decision, as they all turned their gaze towards the direction in which they had been marching before, and narrowed their eyes in anger. 

The Chaos ran. This time they moved with purpose, avoiding obstacles and taking care not to harm anyone who got in their way. They sought revenge. 

- 

Chaos Silver flew at the beaten god-beast, only to watch its titanic form sink into the flooded streets and disappear. The hero paused. Realising the futility of brute force against its nemesis, the Chaos God was resorting to trickery. Even as an embodiment of malicious rage, it still had the cunning mind of Lady Veronica Prower somewhere within it. 

Behind Silver a leaning skyscraper exploded violently as water forced through its pipelines was flooded far beyond bursting point, tearing its framework to bits. He reacted quickly, only to hear another structure suffer the same fate in the opposite direction. He stopped. The Chaos God was destroying what was left of Central City, just to distract Silver, to make him lower his guard at the wrong time. The only towering structure that was spared was the Chaos Matron's palace - Prower Tower. Veronica's kids were there. Was that why she put up that barrier around the tower, to keep them safe even if she should lose control of herself? 

At the same time as Silver's attention was turned towards the sudden destruction of the fortress-like structure he recognised as the primary headquarters of the Guardian Units of Earth, an icy tentacle shot out of the pool directly beneath the hedgehog. He dodged the vicious knife edge at the last second, moving into just the right spot for the second tentacle to impale him. 

Pia, who'd been watching it all via the zoom function of her Jumpsuit helmet, squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't believe it. It couldn't end like this, not now that they were so close to finally putting a stop to the cataclysm that Trevor Pretorious started. 

Silver opened his eyes. The only thing in view was the razor tip of the tentacle sticking out of his chest. He felt faint. Why... 

Why didn't it hurt? 

Chaos Silver grabbed the icy tip and broke it off, then pulled himself free. He finished smashing the frozen tentacles into harmless shards before taking the time to examine the gaping hole in his chest. At the same time the Chaos God arose before the hedgehog, reforming into its monstrous shape, grinning at its apparent victory. Silver watched the blue substance start to flow over the hole, solidifying, then becoming a patch of healthy white fur, as if nothing had ever happened. 

Of course. It was so obvious. Veronica had corrupted the fruits of Project Succession to her own twisted purposes. But a willing union of chao and animaloid, fused together by the torch of the seven Chaos Emeralds, created what Lillian, Ernst and Ramon had aimed to achieve from the start. Professor Gerald must have been the first to understand the potential locked within the chao species. The professor started the quest by creating his Artificial Chaos, and nearly reached success with his Project Shadow. This was it. The TRUE Ultimate Life-Form. Immortal. Invincible. In control. 

"Time to finish this," said the being that was neither Silver the Hedgehog nor Cheese the chao, but the greatest aspects of both. 

Realising the danger presented by the white hedgehog, the Chaos God roared in frustration. That moment was all it took, as the speeding hero became a blur of white light, flying at supersonic speed into the mouth of the monster, digging through its interior until he reached the centre. Against a background of bloated blue liquid, Chaos Silver hugged his chest and bent forward, assuming something like a fetal pose, then he threw out his limbs and let all his power burn freely. The Chaos God evaporated from the inside out, thrashing its arms and clawing at itself in a futile attempt to stop what was rapidly killing it. 

The Chaos God's death cry echoed across the ruins of Central City until the last remnants of the monster burned away... 

This time the dark clouds hovering over the city faded away completely, exposing a beautiful night sky, showing far more stars than any resident had been able to see in years, now that there were no lamps lit in the city to blot out the celestial display. 

Chaos Silver landed on the rooftop of Prower Tower. Even in the little time it took him to fly back to where he started, the blue gel coating the walls of the sky-high building had all but melted away. 

"You really did it," said Pia. She didn't make any effort to hide the tears in her eyes. This time. 

The glowing hedgehog closed his eyes and concentrated. He knew that he could've remained in this form forever, if he chose, but being an Ultimate Life-Form wasn't worth it to either Silver nor Cheese. Silver had no desire to share in Shadow's fate, to outlive each and everyone he cared about, and Cheese already knew of that tragedy far too well. 

There was a mighty flash of light, and then Silver was standing there, holding Cheese just as he had before his dramatic transformation. 

"Yeah," said Silver. "We did." 

"Chao." 

- 

Veronica finally managed to get her head through the thick blobs floating in the filthy water. She gasped and spat, eventually managing to breathe in deep. Her body felt so cold and painful. Fur. Damned fur! Had it always been this chokingly clingy and unpleasant? 

She was floating in the evaporating remains of her godhood. She couldn't remember much of what it had been like now, but she knew it had left her with an incredible sense of loss. 

Buta the chao flew into view, hovering over the flood waters. 

"You!" the beaten fox exclaimed. 

"The balance is restored at last," said the chao in that calm voice of his. "But it was not for my part that ultimate tragedy was prevented. I know now that I am not yet ready to live in this world." 

"Who cares about your petty concerns?" Veronica asked spitefully. "My powers! My rightful place! I want it back! Tell me how to get it back, or I'll kill you, you pathetic bag of pus!" 

"Silver and Blaze don't need to know of my survival. Better that I be forgotten again," Buta went on. 

"I said-" 

"Be silent. You, Veronica Prower, should also be forgotten. You will have what is earned, that is all. Goodbye." 

The last Fifth Stage chao vanished into the water. Veronica made fervent clawing motions at the spot where he'd disappeared. Eventually, out of breath, she hit the water as hard as she could. The ripples in the water didn't stop afterwards, but grew until a Chaos grew out of the liquid. 

"My servant!" Veronica exclaimed. "Look at what these ungrateful rebels have done to your queen, your god! Help me up." 

More Chaos followed. 

"Are you listening to me? I said help me up, you brainless- Wha- What are you doing? No, put those away! I said- No!! Get away from me!! NO!!" 

In the flooded ruins of Central City, there was no one around to hear Veronica's cries for help. 

- 

...Except one. 

Clinging to a ruined wall, Jedo the Chameleon watched and listened to the final fate of his antagonist. He didn't smile, or take any pleasure in her demise. He just needed to see it done. Afterwards, he headed straight for Prower Tower. The brats were going to need someone to look after them now... 

- 

_Next: The Epilogue_


	44. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

With the demise of the Chaos Matron, Earth was saved. But peace did not return so easily. Millions had perished during the wake of the Chao Cataclysm, and widespread pandemonium still reigned in many parts of the world. GUE's forces were stretched to the breaking point in trying to provide relief all across the globe. As the situation stood, evil forces both familiar and unknown saw opportunities laid before them too great to ignore. Worse, Buta's predictions of worldwide retaliations against chao kind would soon prove accurate. Even as Lillian the Echidna put the finishing touches on the second Chaos Emerald Amplification Device, built under the supervision of GUE, Silver and assorted other heroes finished their own preparations. 

"I made a promise to Cheese," Silver had said, "and I intend to keep it." 

Blaze didn't need convincing. She knew her place was beside Silver, protecting the chao and helping the people around the world trying to rebuilt their shattered lives. She would never admit why she tried to push Silver away when her feelings for him were made evident. Even though they'd spent most of their lives together, she'd always found strange comfort in the notion that she could leave for good at any time she chose. She'd always be a loner at heart, but having met Pia and seen her future laid before her, the idea of real commitment to a person didn't seem so frightening anymore... 

As for Pia, she and the other three Temporal Protectorate agents left for their own time shortly after the fall of the Chaos God. They had failed in their mission to prevent Pretorious's temporal twin from causing irreparable damage to the timeline, but Pia was able to return home satisfied that their job was done. She had faith that Silver and his friends would do the work necessary to shape the future into what it once was. 

However, the future Shadow stayed a day later than his comrades. His excuse was that he needed to make certain his past self would regain his proper identity in time, but the truth was quite different. 

"Search Professor Gerald's records," he told Conquest, "and find the cure." 

"Cure for what?" 

"Immortality." 

There would always be heroes ready to protect the world and its people. Shadow, however, had earned the right to retire at last. If there was a way to prevent it, then he'd make sure his past self would not have to endure the pain of watching his lover grow old while he remained youthful for eternity... 

It would take many years until Central City was restored to its former glory. Until that time its populace found a new home onboard the Space Colony Ark. The station had originally been designed to house thousands of scientists along with their families, meeting all their needs. Within a month of their arrival, the new crew saw all of the Ark's facilities returned to working order. To live on an Ark just as it had been before the disaster 250 years ago helped speed up Shadow's recovery considerably. Very soon he and Conquest were ready to join Silver and Blaze down on Earth, fighting to bring peace to the world once more. 

Eggman Nega, meanwhile, was to be the one who'd profit the most from the aftermath of the Chao Cataclysm. With GUE's forces stretched so thin, and no Chaos to stand in his path, the villainous scientist's power and control grew far beyond the bounds of his previous heights. Out of respect for their achievements, he would allow his enemies a small reprieve, but soon Silver, Blaze and the rest of the world would learn to fear his true power. 

Finally, Jedo the Chameleon found what he'd always sought: Wealth. With so many records lost in the destruction of Central City and nearby provinces, it was a simple matter to forge the necessary evidence to reinvent himself as Lady Veronica Prower's estranged brother-in-law. With no heir of age to inherit the Prower fortune, it was Jedo who managed to claim the seat of power and the fantastic riches surrounding the post. But the wealth that Jedo acquired was not only monetary. Although he never particularly liked the Prower children, he still felt responsible for their having lost their parent, and therefore saw it as his duty to make sure they didn't grow up into greedy power-lusting megalomaniacs like their late mother. Eventually, he did grow to care for them. And as the Prower heirs grew old enough to claim their inheritance, they were kind enough in return not to expose Jeffery-Donovan the Chameleon for the fraud that he was. 

"Is that really your name?" Christopher Prower once asked the chameleon. 

"If it was, I'd probably lie and tell you no." 

"Of course." 

-

**The Adventure Never Ends**


End file.
